Knitting (or Heartfelt, Heart Melt)

Knitting, first moments.

Playing in the (handcrafted) tree house in one corner of the store.

Joe learned to knit yesterday, though to be fair, it might be more accurate to say someone tried to teach him to knit. Early this fall, Joe announced that he would be asking Santa for a "knitting kit" or sometimes, in the alternative, a "sewing kit"--"like the one he saw with Grandma Connie and Grandpa Charles at Barnes & Noble." We spent a good amount of time between then and Christmas trying to ascertain what these words might be describing.  The Grandparents Trump were of no help because they did not realize they where even present when the knitting (or sewing) kit made such a remarkable impression. A family field trip to a local Minnesota Barnes & Noble revealed mostly that Joe and Clara planned to ask Santa for items that were carefully culled from a list of nearly every toy available at Barnes & Noble.  There were too many delights to even focus on finding a knitting kit.  But it revealed itself to Julie from a table curated by the Barnes & Noble staff--sewing kit! (cue light streaming from the heavens and lilting angelic voices)--from which she quickly spirited it away to a register.

This toy was being marketed to girls. A fetching tween was pictured on its box looking perky and crafty. The box was filled with pink, purple, and aqua yarn with small amount of black and orange thrown in for interest; pink knitting needles; and other assorted crafting tools in shades of pink and purple.  Julie spent the next several weeks looking for alternatives that might be more age appropriate and, perhaps,  more gender-neutral. She had once had a weaving loom on which she made many a not-very-useful five-inch-square pot holders (repurposed as coasters by their recipients).  That loom was red, and came with loops in every color of the rainbow. She set out to find a like loom and quickly realized that if we have come a long way, baby, in telling girls explicitly and implicitly that they can do all the things that the boys do, and celebrating girls who do not conform to female gender stereotypes, we do not do the same for our boys who do not conform, always or sometimes, to the stereotypes associated with their gender.  Girls who do not conform to female stereotypes and their parents have a some support as they make their way, and a whole lexicon to describe their journey.  Mighty girls unite! Boys, try not to cry. It's maddening. The fact that we don't really recognize, let alone celebrate, the boy who doesn't conform to the dominant male stereotype might be a kind of vestigial sexism--what boys do is where it's at--or confusion about the distinction between still-not-always-accepted homosexuality versus gender role non-conformity.  But there is clarity in the toy aisles and it is clearly that gendered toys sell.  Boys who do not confirm to the dominant stereotypes of their gender and their parents have few or no options.  Knitting--or sewing, if you like--kits abound featuring all you will need to make a pink or purple hat or scarf or felted bag, very likely with a flower appliqué, modeled by smiling tween-aged girls. Today's looms are exclusively pink or purple and come with an over abundance of pink, purple, aqua, and pale yellow loops and the girls on the boxes containing them look tickled (pink, of course).

And, on top of this exasperating circumstance, there was this: neither Juie nor Ted knits. So with the sewing kit secure, and Joe's more frequent use of "knitting kit," Julie figured she should think about how Joe was going to learn to knit. The whole endeavor seemed like a non-starter given Joe's age, but if it is true that six might be too young to knit, it is not too young to be taken seriously. So, she arranged a lesson from a knitting colleague on one of the last days she worked in December before Christmas. She casted on, she knit a row.  She was skeptical she would remember, but it seemed better than nothing.  That same colleague gave Julie the name of a friend at a knitting and textiles store that, as it turns out, is right down the road from the White House.  It was a good thing, too, because Julie's skepticism of her ability to remember how to knit was well-founded.

So one day after Christmas, Julie and Joe made a trip to the knitting store.  Juile's colleague had suggested knitting with a goal, so Julie asked Joe what he would like to make.  He said a blanket for one of his stuffed animals. At the knitting store, they introduced themselves and told the person there that Joe would like to learn to knit, to make a blanket for his stuffed animal. That person quickly demurred, but suggested another name of a possible teacher, and also that he might select some yarn to use. So Julie and Joe walked out with orange, "super washed"--a modifier Our Herois now always quick to attach--yarn, and the appropriate needles for said yarn (size sevens).

Later that day, Julie called one of the teachers who didn't laugh, but also didn't seem terribly excited about the prospect of teaching a six-year old how to knit.  She mentioned a store called Heartfelt, in this tone that implied she couldn't imagine why Julie would be calling her when Heartfelt existed. So Julie called Heartfelt and when her elevator speech about knitting lessons for her six-year-old son who wanted to make a blanket for a stuffed animal was interrupted with "Oh! That's a great first project!", she knew she'd found the right place to take Joe.

Heartfelt is a kid's crafting haven in a Minneapolis neighborhood with the bucolic name of Linden Hills.  (You can see the hills of linden trees, right?)  Joe's teacher is Heartfelt's owner, Lisa.  Lisa sat down on a small couch with Joe, asked him about himself and his experience with knitting, casted on for him, and then started knitting with him using a little rhyme: "In the front door, around the back, peek through the window, and out jumps Jack." She was very, very, very clam.  In between rows, she sent Joe on a lap around the store to burn off a little of his abundant excitement.  At the end of two rows, Lisa told Julie that although Joe was a little young, she was game to keep going. She asked Joe if he wanted to keep going with knitting a blanket for Pengy (which Lisa rightly guessed was Joe's penguin) or explore other ways of making a blanket.  Joe said he wanted to knit the blanket.  So Julie and Joe is will head back next week where Lisa will revisit what Julie's colleague showed her so that Joe has a partner in crime on the home front which will aid in the Pengy Blanket Campaign.

After Julie and Joe walked out, on the sidewalk in front of the store, he looked up at her, smiling and on a peel of laugher said, "I can't believe you let me do that!" And then he threw his arms around her legs and added, "Thank you, Mommy!"

Heart melt in front of Heartfelt.