In SUPPORT of Winter v.2.0

We get a whole lot of winter around these parts and typically that means snow, cold, short days, and a whole lot of layers to stay warm. Last year we had a very mild winter with very little snow. That’s why, with the return to normal seasonal weather, so many people are complaining. We turned into wussies very quickly. For shame!

Help, my eyes are frozen open!

So what is a girl and her good Canadian family to do when the nights are long and cold? Go outside anyways? Yes, of course, but what else? Knit? Great idea! And what should I be knitting.... things to keep us warm when we go outside. The problem is that I have 5 people to knit winter woollies for (including myself) and I cannot possibly knit fast enough to keep everyone warm on the same year or before items get discarded, out grown or lost. This is a serious problem.

I get an idea to knit my kids simple mittens. But after knitting 3 full pairs someone mentions that “they are awfully thin, Mom. And cold.  And make your hands all sore and chapped when they get wet. And maybe I lost one at school or in the van butitsnotmyfault.” The last part was said as a mumble under the breath hoping that I wouldn’t hear.  So no one wears the mittens. 

So I get a brainwave and buy polar fleece to line the newly knit gloves. I test my tiny brain on making my own fabric mitten as a liner in reverse and sew it together.  Really, how hard this can be, I say to myself. Pretty darn hard, as it turns out, for the girl who doesn't sew!  Mitts are now lined, albeit a little lumpy, but the kids won't wear them now because they are too small. Crap.

Repeat this process with hats. To pretty much the same success. (The hats in the picture below are admittedly decorative hats and not really one ones for really keeping warm but you get the idea.) 

Left to Right: Rustling Leaves Beret, Cowled by Thy Mane, Propello Hat for Hannah

I give up! I will have children wrapped in warm non-knitted items! I only care that they are warm and dry. Really what I have come to realize is that sometimes knitting for kids is like shoveling the driveway while it is still snowing... usually a lot of work for nothing.

I'll save the good stuff for me.