There is more than one way of learning

to do anything. 
I taught some knitters to do something called "corrugated ribbing" yesterday...at least, I hope I did. There were six of them in the class and that is about right for something that has to be hands on.
It wasn't what I would have started them on for learning how to do Fair Isle but it is what I was told to do so I did.
I have shown some people who were there how to do other things but this was new to them - or so they claimed. 
I had devised a simple project but it didn't work out  quite the way I intended - which taught me something.
Part of the problem was that someone else came in at the beginning of the class and had quite a long chat to someone who was supposed to be part of the class. I couldn't get annoyed. The intruder is old. She is not well. She didn't intend to be in the way. But it meant not explaining the process to the group in the way I intended.
And that meant about half of them didn't quite get the idea to start with.
I still don't know how I could have handled the interruption so it didn't interfere with the class. There was only a very limited amount of time for teaching. Oh well, I tried.
And I think  that, by the end of it, people did  understand the idea and what lies behind it. Fair Isle is a tiny speck in the North Sea. It is only about 8km long and just 55 people live there. Nowadays it survives on bird watching, farming the hardy little Shetland sheep, and Fair Isle knitwear. The island belongs to the National Trust and it is an important part of Scottish heritage. It is an even more important part of knitting heritage. One tiny island has had a massive impact on knitting. 
     "Why do corrugated ribbing?" someone asked me. It's a reasonable question. Why bother with using two colours and making a double fabric for the borders as well as the rest of the garment. It's fiddly and,  unlike normal ribbing, it has no elasticity.
Normal ribbing at cuffs, waists, and necklines is often intended to draw the rest of the garment in and make it fit snugly. Corrugated ribbing doesn't do that. Instead it is designed to be a hard wearing border for the rest of the garment made from a double layer of  yarn. It is all part of the incredibly practical but fascinating colour patterns of Fair Isle knitting. And yes, it worth learning to do if you want to put the work into making a garment like that.
So, I hope I taught them something. I'd like to teach the little class a lot more about the way my ancestors devised means of keeping their families warm and comfortable in a largely inhospitable climate.  It  won't be happening.
But, at least I have shown them something.