Kids’ Knits, Figs. 1 – 3

Figure 1

When I was a kid, I imagined that one of the features of the afterlife was a Statistics Room. In this room, you could learn any figure or number from the recently departed life. How many times did you sneeze? How many pairs of shoes did you wear? How much total time did you spend kissing your partner? How many times did you say or write the word “the”? I now know that the notion of the Statistics Room stemmed from a childhood anxiety that even though these numbers existed, no one was keeping track of them. My personal anxieties are a little different these days, but there are still a few numbers that I’m really wondering about. For example: how many total yards of yarn in the world are devoted to hand-knit items for people under five years old?

Before my kids were born, I expected my contribution to this number to be much greater than it actually is. Little Ms. M. and Mr. S., who are now just over two years old, spent the first year of their lives growing at an alarming rate. For all of the baby items I knit for my then-pregnant friends, I had no idea that baby-sized knits are rarely worn for more than, oh, about five minutes. The Fibonacci Sweaters you see in Fig. 1 above were designed and knit for Knit Picks’s Independent Designer Program, which means I sent the sweaters off to Knit Picks not long after that picture was taken. When the sweaters came back—only a few weeks later—M. and S. couldn’t get them over their heads.

It’s much more fun to knit for the twins now that they’re older and not expanding at quite the same rate. The items Z and I knit for them are worn for almost two months now! That said, Z is far outstripping me in the knits-for-kids department. See Fig. 2 below.

Figure 2: Items knit for M&S during the period 6/1/10 – 12/31/11
By Z
By Me

The issue here is obvious, and mostly attributable to Z’s uncanny ability to knit and read at the same time, a superpower which I can’t even hope to attain (see Fig. 3 below). The only thing I can do while I’m knitting is . . . um, knit. I can’t even walk and talk at the same time without running into a parking meter. But I’m working on filling in my column in Figure 2, along with balancing out the recipient ratio. As you can see, M has been getting way more stuff than S. Luckily for us, they’re still too young to notice. For now.

Figure 3

10 Comments

  • April says:

    My mother has always been the multi-tasker: knit/crochet, watch television, AND read a book all about the same time. My husband finds it amazing that I can knit and watch a movie at the same time while still keeping up with what goes on in the movie. I guess it’s the difference between the two sexes.

  • Renee says:

    She can read AND knit?! Seriously!? WOW.
    I can watch a movie while crocheting because crochet is SO much easier than knitting and if you make a mistake it ain’t no big thang, but as far as knitting goes, I can pretty much just knit and maybe listen to a movie as long as there is someone else there to tell me what just happened.
    I totally stopped knitting for my son once I realized how fast he was going to grow out of everything, oh and also once I realized that I might never get to sleep again. Ever.

  • It’s totally the truth — I learned how to read and knit somewhere around the beginning of college, and I seriously don’t think I could have graduated from university without that skill.

    Back then I was enabled by the big coursepacks with their spiral binding and thus the ability to read them hands-free as they sat on my kitchen table and I knitted endless sweaters while I read them. But now that I’m in the post-college book world, the Book Hug is my tool of choice (http://www.bookhug.com/). 🙂

  • Those children’s sweaters are just simply darling!

  • Helen says:

    I used to have a really good brain for learning new things and remembering stuff (very handy for a musician!). Unfortunately, I had some kind of “brain event” about 6 years ago and I cannot do those things anymore anywhere near the level I used to. I never learned to read and knit at the same time, and I doubt I could learn how to now. Fortunately, technology has come to the rescue – I’ve found I simply adore audiobooks and that is how I read and knit now (it also helps screen out teenager noise – a major plus IMO). Lovely to see the twins!

  • Robin P. says:

    ADORABLE post. I loved the complimentary photos as well. The sweaters are gorgeous. I was thinking of attempting to knit my niece a baby blanket, after checking out one of my fave yarn sites. You should check out their products.

    http://www.galleryarns.com/

    Thanks again for the cute post.

    🙂

  • Marg says:

    They are indeed like kudzu at that age but far cuter, esp. M & S! I’ve knit hats for all the little ones of my acquaintance, not terrifically productive but I know they probably each got at least one if not two season’s worth of wear. The fact that they grow so fast has led me to making quilts — it takes them a few years to outgrow those.

    Kudos to you and Z for the knits and the twins!

  • Yarn says:

    Your article is amazing I got an effective knowledge from you article. I want to read more about your other articles on Yarn and Cotton yarn

  • MeredithJean says:

    Oh my your blog is AMAZING… I just found you via Google when searching Mr Flood. Twins to knit for! And you both knit! Between the 2 of you, your knitting diary is a great book idea in itself. I hope you have only disappeared of late because you are SO BUSY KNITTING! Cheers from Meredith in Australia xxx.

  • The pictures are very cute 🙂

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