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[magicbeaned]

WHO: Belinda (Jack the Giant Killer) and Harrison (Tweedledum)
WHEN: 6-8pm
WHERE: The Pen, lobby.
WHAT: Knitting lessons.

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[one_fry_short]

"I don't know about that," Harri chuckled. "I'm fairly confident that my cooking skills are limited. I never did catch Ratatouille, either, so I guess I fail at seeing popular flicks, even." He noticed her glowing shirt and looked at her with curious brown eyes. "Your shirt is...glowing?" It came out more as a question than a statement, because he figured, he hoped, that she knew it was glowing.

He received the yarn with a smile and admired it. Though he had watched his mum knit a bunch of times, growing up, he couldn't recall the last time he had actually held yarn like this. It brought him back. He looked up from the yarn into Belinda's eyes, his own eyes sparkling with eagerness and enthusiasm. "I'm ready whenever you are, teacher. What are we making today?"

[magicbeaned]

Belinda grinned at him a little bit. "It was a cute movie. The motto from it is Anyone can cook and the rat cooks, so it's true. Just like anyone can knit." She glanced down at her shirt, and gave an approving nod. "It glows when there's a wireless internet signal around. The building must have wifi." She said it like she was sure of two things: one, that it was an amazing shirt and two, that she was a giant nerd for owning it. Her tone was slightly apologetic to convey that.

All manner of self-deprication was lost when she looked up and Harrison had those eager puppy eyes pointed at her. He was so... she just wanted to pinch his cheeks. She didn't, of course; she had more decorum than that. "We're going to knit a square," she said, and then laughed. "I know, square's not that exciting, but everyone starts with squares. Then it's just a hop, skip and jump to knitting rectangles. And that's a scarf."

She held her needles aloft. "Got your needles?" she showed how she held hers, and picked up the yarn. "So first we'll cast on. Grab your yarn and a needle." She showed him how to cast on a stitch - it involved tying a fancy sort of knot onto the needle. She did it slowly, showing him how it was done. "So the tail of the yarn goes over your thumb, there. Always make sure you have a long enough tale to make your whole row. Usually you'll need a tail that's about three times as long as the row you want to make."

[one_fry_short]

Harri looked quite amazed at Belinda's shirt. "It picks up wifi signals? That's awesome! How does it work?" He did not think she was a nerd at all, and really enjoyed creative, inventive things like that. His obsession with how things work added to his childlike qualities.

He laughed when she told him what they'd be knitting. "A square? You say square, I say pot holder." He grinned. "I imagine that corners will be pretty hard to do. I don't remember my mum doing too many things with corners. She was a circle kind of gal, always making hats and things like that."

Watching her closely, he raised his needles and attempted with moderate success to mirror her every move. His delicate hands fumbled slightly, but he was so careful that he was able to make a whole row with hardly any problem. Any time he made a mistake, he let out a cute little laugh. "My fingers aren't used to so much exercise."

[magicbeaned]

Belinda hummed, nodding a bit and pulling the shirt away from her chest a bit, to show him. "The front part comes off, so you can wash it. It takes batteries, there's a wifi detector built in - like those keychain ones - and depending on how strong the signal is, the lights glow in different intensities." She showed him, turning the shirt slightly inside-out at the neck, how the LED lights were fixed to the shirt, and the battery pack. It was only a little bit stretched out from her twisting it when she straightened the shirt out again.

"That's the spirit! Everyone starts with pot holders. And tea cozies. Coasters. Place mats. There are a zillion things to do with squares and rectangles. I once knit a robot out of a bunch of different-shaped squares. Just sewed them up and stuffed it." It was a proud moment. She grinned a bit more, at his mention of his mother. "Ah, knitting in the round? I'm working on a sock, so I have it on dpns - double-pointed needles, I mean. Here, I'll show you," she pulled out her current project - it was probably a bit daunting, to see something being worked in the round. The stitches were spread out along four different needles, situated in a circle.

Determined not to get too enchanted by this tiny, cute, pixie-man - she sure was getting attracted to a lot of men lately, wasn't she? It'd been a while since she'd... well, years, really. Four of them. She hadn't dared to even date after the disaster with her last boyfriend (husband) and so it was a sudden shock to find herself attracted to not just one, but a couple of men at once.

"Your fingers are doing fine," she reassured him, smiling. "You've cast on your first row. Now, grab your other needle. The one the yarn on it already goes in your left hand, empty needle in your right. Hold the yarn on your left, too. Usually, I wrap it around my pinkie." She showed him how to knit a stitch, on the needle she'd just cast on, her sock-in-progress set aside for now.