Converting the world - one little girl at a time.

I was hanging out with DBF’s sister’s friend’s little girl, Ava. She won at a game her and I were playing and declared that I owed her $3 cause she won (this wasn’t set up before I starting playing the game with her - gotta love little kids!). I told her “I don’t have and money - you want yarn?” She said yes, so I cut some bits of the yarn I had from the project I brought over, and started knotting the yarn into a friendship bracelet a’la 3rd grade. Ava come over to watch me do this, and was asking questions (she’s 7 y.o.).

DBF’s sis said “Why don’t you show her how to knit? She’d like that!” I asked Ava if she wanted to see me knit and she said yes. I was making a stuffed dog and had finished the body and had just casted on for his leg before I got there. I took my cast on row and started knitting, telling her the poem I heard “In through the front door, up over the back, peep through the window, and off jumps jack.”

Well, sure enough, Ava wanted to try. I only had my size three needles, and some “Reclaimed” yarn I was working with - not the best stuff to teach a young kid with, but damned if she didn’t keep trying and got it after a while. I kept telling her things like “you missed your house.” when she would put her needle between stitches, and “keep your hat on when you look out the window” when she would lose her yarn over.

Her older brother, who was in college, came over to watc, and I’m sure he thought I was nuts saying this stuff, but she was knitting and doing well. My fav. thing she would ask is “Where’s my window?” and I would take my figure or needle and show her where she was to peek out of.

I told her and her mom if Ava really wanted to keep knitting, to bring her over my house one afternoon and I had better stuff for her to work with and it would be more fun for her, rather than learning on these tiny needles.

Turns out, her father’s mom use to knit, and she died in a car accident when he was 24 - he teared up when he saw me knitting, and he left before I taught Ava how to - I’m sure he would be tickled pink if she learned :)

Sorry for the long post- this just made me happy and I wanted to share.

BTW - I was telling her how I make yarn from sheeps' wool and she asked me “who kills the sheep?!!?” I explained and put her on etsy to look at the different colors of roving and wool. After a bit, she pulled her brother over and proudly proclaimed “That’s sheep!” He said “That don’t look like sheep to me…”.