My mom taught Birdie to knit before our big family trip to Switzerland, and it was so wonderful to see not only how Birdie persevered through learning, but also how special it was between the two of them. I have tried knitting lots of times, but I don’t have the same skill level as my mom, and if i’m honest, i have too many hobbies already to dedicate the time needed to be good at it. So it’s been such a joy to see my mom pass on her knowledge to Birdie, and see a new generation fall in love with knitting.
This project combined two things i’m really passionate about. I think it’s incredibly important for kids to spend special time with their grandparents, and i’m also a massive believer in the value of hobbies. I think the more physical hobbies kids have the less temptation there is to spend all their time online.
Birdie’s first lessons were on smaller needles with a finer yarn, but for her final project she chose a lovely chunky plush yarn and thicker needles and i think that helped her enjoy the process and see her work take shape faster. It was a bit of a challenge fitting everything in as though Ouma’s yarn stash is quite large, she only had two skeins of this yarn and we couldn’t find it anywhere. I think she had bought it quite some time before.
But they made it work! My mom used one skein to knit the hat, and Birdie used the remainder to make a pom pom for top as she is a fan of massive pom poms. Birdie used the second skein for her scarf and she just knitted a strip until she ran out, then we twisted it once and sewed the ends together.
What this resulted in was a tube scarf with a twist at the front and she really loved this as it meant that she didn’t have to fuss with tying her scarf, she just popped it over her head when we went out into the snow and if she was really cold she doubled it up so it was closer around her neck.
This worked so well that it really makes me think all kids scarves should be tubes! It was so easy for her to wear, never got lost and in the situations where she did get a bit hot, it was so easy for me to just sling it over my arm.
I’m so glad that Birdie not only had the opportunity to learn to knit from her Ouma, but also that she was able to take the things they made together and use them on our family trip to Switzerland. So many wonderful memories all wrapped up together!
