Teaching a Child to Machine Knit

I'm feeling the need to brag about our machine knitting club's youngest member, whom we'll just call Princess.  She lives with my friend Barbara, her grandma, and has been knitting since she was tiny.  Most of my readers have seen the video she and I made where she knits a hair scrunchie:



As time goes by, she continues to knit, very often for charity. She has made blankets for the troops as well as helped with hats and scarves.  Mostly she made square things or helped with the  plain stretches, getting a bit of help from Barbara with tasks like binding off or decreases.

Now Princess is making an actual sweater and has already knitted the 3-month-old sweater, front, back and one sleeve, from the Goldilocks Challenge book, which has patterns for bulky machines and a DVD that shows the process, step by step. That baby sweater is really going to be an accomplishment for a 9-year-old!  Barbara figured that Princess would have an easier time with the bigger needles.  Their routine is to watch the DVD for a little while, and then Princess does that part of the project.

She has actually reached the point where she tells Barbara not to help her, that she can figure it out for herself!  She has declared increases and decreases "fun," and she's planning to make a hat from the book next.