I know exactly what you mean Alison. Brooke is nearing the stage of choosing her own clothes (not that skirt mum - is the frequent cry in our house most mornings) She is still proud of the clothes that I make for her, she goes running into nursery shouting "mummy made this" when I send her in something new but I'm sure the day will come when she shows her disapproval. Maybe that means its time to have another baby to knit for!

I really like the Rowan Junior book. I just finished helping one of my students with one of the patterns. It was all I could do to keep my hands off and let her do it herself. Actually I did do the front neckline shaping for her as she was having a lot of trouble understanding how to count the pattern after doing the decreases. And those boys are just too cute, but then you knew that.

They look so cute !
Oliver ,who is 3 ,gets very excited if I'm knitting for him ,and loves to wear whatever I make. Luckily I have yet to make anything he doesn't like. I always ask what he thinks before I start !

What cuties the boys are in their hats! I love the way the mutssjaals turned out. It is such a delight to dress them up while we can!
Happy New Year and happy knitting!

Whoa - I guess I should consider myself lucky. Liam (nearly 4) couldn't care a less what he's wearing, I don't think he even really pays attention unless it's something he really likes (ooh, bob the builder underwear!). I was hoping it was a boy thing that would last for a long while....
The boys look very cute indeed in their hats - how do you decide which one gets which item (I notice you always do their sets each differently), is it an appearance thing, a personality thing or do you let them choose?

Thanks for the feedback, folks! I'm so glad to hear that many of you haven't had that big of a problem knitting cute stuff for your little ones that they'll wear.

To answer Kate's question about what to put on whom, since my boys are just starting to learn about colors and aren't yet verbal, I haven't begun asking them about what they might want to wear. My only rule is to try not to put the same colors on the same kid always (although that would help everyone in figuring out who is who). Basically, I just put one thing on one and the other on the other and then stick with that decision for that shirt or pants or whatever. Stefan is a tiny bit plumper, so sometimes I put darker colors on him and horizontal stripes on Benny, which of course makes them look more alike and confuses people further, but that's the fun of identical twins!

Alison, first I want to thank you for a very enjoyable blog - you've inspired me to start my own (up shortly). I particularly like all the pictures you include!

As for knitting for boys, it's quite a challenge as they get older. My younger son, when he was 8 (now 13), desperately wanted a cabled sweater knit in a marbled yarn to match a sweater my sister was knitting for her boyfriend. Always happy to accomodate a request, I adapted the adult pattern and made him a kid version to spec. Well, he loves this sweater eventhough he NEVER WORE IT!! He considers it a love object and has already asked me if it is okay to keep it and pass it on to his children.

From this sweater I learned that the act of knitting is more important than the actual wearing of the finished garment. All the love I knit into that sweater was not lost due to lack of wearing! Of course, in a perfect world the hand knit love object is also warn - but we're all too wish to think it's a perfect world!

see, the thing that blows my mind is that you've got the desire/time to do fancy color work when you've got not just one but *two* running around. there was a whole period of time for me where even simple intarsia was too much, since I was always losing my place when One needed something or other *right now*!

love the pictures in the animal hats, too -- One will only wear his for about 2 mins at a time, & it comes off as soon as the camera comes out!

My twins stopped wearing similar/identical outfits in 1st grade after one of the boys requested that they not wear the same outfits every day because he got tired of people getting him & his bro mixed up even though they're not identical...(they are basically the same size, though).. oh well.

I like dressing my youngest child 18 mos old) in cute stuff & I asked my 5 year old to help me pick out a pattern & colors for a Lopi sweater with yoke patterning & he picked out a snowflake pattern & he wanted blues, but when I pointed out that the oak yarn & white & a darker brown would be similar colors to our part-siamese cat, he was all for it! At least one of the twins wants that kind of sweater also... we'll see how it goes with the first one! (A prolific knitter I'm not..wish I was, though but I knit too slowly...)

Once my kids turned two they started getting picky about wearing sweaters. I think the issue for each of them is that they don't like layers. We, in fact, have a hard time keeping clothes on my 4 year old (but that's a different story). But they enjoy my knitting in other ways. I knit scarves and hats. I made that fold up blanket from an EZ book and my daughter has fun with using that in different ways. I also like making puppets for them. My daughter is an animal nut so I have thought about knitting Tiger Opal socks for her. I guess if she didn't like them, I could donate them to CIC.

Awwwww...I love those hats and your boys look so cute wearing them!

Alison:
what age group does the mutssjaal pattern go up to?

Hi Jessica! The pattern is from this Phildar layette book and goes up to two years. That's the size I made, but I changed the gauge and so had to redo all the math anyway. So it shouldn't be a problem for the non-math-challenged to size it up.

Interesting. My previous post is missing.

Yes, your comment looked like advertising to me, as it did not say anything but that this was an interesting post and you would return. If you would like to make a comment, please do, but I would appreciate it if you did not advertise by putting a business web address as your URL. Thank you.

Hi:

Just was wondering if anybody has a bob the builder sweater knitting pattern to share?

Thanks
Kim

Kim, I don't know of such a sweater pattern. You could try printing out a picture of Bob or one of the trucks onto a sheet of graph paper and making a chart for yourself that way. If my boys ever specifically request a sweater with a character on it, that's what I'd try to do first. Good luck!