My sister just recently had knee surgery and will be at home for the next few weeks.  She’s staying at a place without Internet access.  She told me that she was feeling a bit stir-crazy so I volunteered to teach her how to knit.  She was happy & immediately asked if she could make a “circle scarf”, similar to the one that I had made for her for Christmas one year.  At first, I told her that might not be good for a beginner but then I found a pattern that suggested how I could make the project either a scarf or a cowl at the end.  I figured a project that would be close to what she wants to do would be a project that she would finish.  Finishing a project, no matter how large or small, is so critical when you’re first learning how to knit.

I visited with her the next day and showed her how to knit & purl.  I selected this project because I thought it would be beginner friendly.  It has enough changes to keep a beginner interested, while enforcing knitting foundations: repetitions of the knit & purl stitch.

I’ve found that beginners really just want to get going without much in the way of discouragement, and I remembered how hard it was for me to get past a cast-on and the first initial rows of knitting when I was first learning how to knit. I also figured that someone in a ton of pain from surgery might not want to spend much time fiddling with a cast-on, which is something she would end up forgetting anyway.  She’d have to learn it again for her next project. & there’s plenty of time for that.

To this end, I decided to knit the first repeat of the pattern for her so that she would have something to begin with right away, and so that she could get an idea of what things might end up looking like.  Here it is:

This made me start thinking more about the therapeutic power that knitting has – I’m sure, if she ends up enjoying knitting, that it will prove to be a fine, productive distraction for her as she recovers from her surgery.

Get the pattern here: Beginner Friendly Cowl or Scarf