Monday, September 15, 2008

A Knitter is Born

On Saturday, I decided to take a little time to knit at Llama Llama Knit here in Novato. I asked my son Austen if he wanted to join me, and I was surprised when he said "Yes". Usually when I ask my boys to join me for any yarn/knitting related journeys I get eyes rolling at me or a "Do I have to?" whining question. So I almost didn't know how to respond to a "yes" answer. Off we headed to our local yarn store. After introducing Austen to the three store owners, I began knitting and Austen started reading the book he brought along. After a little time, I noticed that Austen had put down his book and was watching those of us who were knitting. I asked if he wanted to learn how to knit, and his response was "Sure". Thankfully we were in a place with lots of knitters. Alec, one of the shop owners, sat down with Austen and taught him how to do a knit stitch. He was so patient with Austen...something I probably couldn't have done! We couldn't stay long as my eldest son had a baseball game so off we went to the ball game. Part way through the game Austen asked if he could go to the car and get his knitting to work on. He worked through the rest of the ball game and through the evening at home on his knitting. Austen would often stop to ask for help, and I was happy to assist. This continued through most of the day Sunday until Austen declared that he had made it three rows by himself without any help at all. He's doing quite well. He holds his needles differently than I do, but it works for him. I had to field many questions including: "Mom, can we go back to the yarn store?", "When can we go back to the yarn store?", "Can I join knit night now?", "When is the next knit night?", "Mom, what inspired you to knit?" It was fun to talk to at least one of my children about my hobby.

My husband just laughed at me. He said that my retreat (from my kids and the daycare kids) is the yarn store, and if I keep this up I'll have all three kids with me at the yarn store. I suppose my husband is right. But now that a knitter is born, I guess I can't stop him.

2 comments:

Tamami said...

I think I'm going to the local hardware store to get Austen his own stash bin!!!!
Woohoo! We need to have a Initiation Knit Night Friday!

Stefaneener said...

That's great! I love it when my kids knit -- you do lose something (I'm always defending my stash) but you gain so much more.

It's nice to think that my kids will almost automatically have friends who knit when they grow up.