I LOVE TO KNIT. I love my daughter. Shouldn’t the two go together?
She begged. She pleaded. When I picked my needles up this fall after a summer-long hiatus, the Rock was determined. This, her fifth year on our spinning blue planet, would be the one. She was going to learn to knit.
Did I mention she’s 4? And a half?
I know that there are supermoms reading this who have all kinds of great advice about handwork for kids, and I applaud them. And their patience.
Patience is not one of my virtues.
But she can be very, uh, persuasive, and the embroidery experience with the Rock went off much better than expected. Perhaps that relative triumph gave me the foolhardy confidence to try her hands at knitting.
We began a scarf together. Within 20 minutes, I was holding the left needle, she had the right, and was whooping and swooping the yarn around to make every knit stitch. Never mind that it took 10 minutes per row; we were both delighted with her progress. While it was hard for her to hold the needles, insert the right hand needle into the left hand stitch, or remove the new stitch from the left hand needle–she knew what needed to be done. And her mastery of the order of things, if not the ability to do them, quickly turned her into a tiny needlework needler.
“No, Mama! You’re not doing it right!” she shrieked as I tried to pick up a dropped stitch.
“No, Mama! I want to use the other purple now!” (I’d raided my stash for Rock-friendly colors to stripe in.)
After about an hour, I pleaded exhaustion, distracted her with watercolors, and called it a day. I thought she’d drop it.
But the next night, as we were settling in for a Sunday night family movie, and I took up my own knitting, she looked at me, horrified. “No, Mama! We have to do my knitting!”
As we sat huddled together, poking, looping and slipping stitch after careful stitch, she beamed.
“See, Mama? I can knit in the dark, too.”
Indeed.
Related posts:
- Stick It To Me (or, Fall Is Here) There once was a girl from New York, Whose husband...
First time here? Here's the idea:
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
i LOVE this. i used to knit with my mama. and my brother did, too. i think i had those same fat knitting needles.
What a treasure that scarf will be. (You think they’ll confiscate it along with your belt and shoelaces when you “check in”?)
I was working on a glove last week-end and one of my nieces (a 6 year old) took great interest. Knitting in the round on DPNs, I held her hands and guided her through the motions. We didn’t do too much but next visit I will be bringing her needles and yarn of her own to play with!
Amazing!
I’m still trying to figure out how to get my 3 year old actually working the sewing machine with me. Her legs just aren’t quite long enough.
Hilarious!
And I know what awaits me with Tallulah — this is going to be her knitting year too (I’ve fended off the embroidery entreaties).