Gauge is not super important with this pattern. It’s all about approximates. It’s a stretchy yarn, and textured, therefore not a bad pattern for a beginner to work with if they want to play with stretch and tension.

As long as you’re not going to wild extremes in your tension this should turn out great no matter how old you are. I’m using this as my 11 year old son’s first project (wrist bands).

You can use non-stretchy yarn, but then you may want to find a gauge you can stick with, it will make a difference on how the edges turn out.