First Knitting Class

This evening I teach my first knitting class at our local library, so, of course, I put off getting ready until today. This morning I turned 26 dowels and polymer clay into 13 pairs of knitting needles for my students to use if they do not have their own. First I used a pencil sharpener to make the tips. Then I sanded them so they were nice and smooth (but I am bringing sand paper with me in case I missed a spot). The sanding down goes much quicker if you put the dowels into a drill press but be sure to put them in straight or they wobble like crazy, then break apart and send dowels flying through the air (not that that happened to me...). Also, wear goggles. Then I used epoxy to glue on the little pieces of polymer clay and I had shaped and baked. Total cost for 13 sets was $8, less than a $1 a pair.  You can use just about anything on the end of the needle that you can glue down. Buttons, little pieces of wood you can get next to dowels in the craft store, beads, etc. So if you are interested in learning to knit but don't want to spend a lot of money right away making your own needles is the way to go. A 1/4" dowel is about a size 10 or 10.5 US and a 3/16" dowel is about a size 8 US. I have also heard of making circular needles using dowels and weed eater cable but I have yet to try it. I did not put any finish on these but a penetrating oil finish like tung oil is a good choice. Also these were made with softwood dowels, a hardwood dowel with give you a better product, our craft store did not have hardwood dowels so mine are softwood.

The word at the library is that there could be quite a few people there. Wish me luck.

PS the the jar is sitting on top of one of three baby quilts I will hopefully get finished in time to put up for sale at a quilt show my mom is organizing at her church