Choosing a wearable project for your kid.

I love knitting for children. In some ways, I always have.

I was seven when I started knitting. At the time, I was in home-schooling--along with my brother--and we were sailing. Our teacher taught me how to knit. We started with squares, as many of us do, because they can have all the basic skills.

Cast on. Tension maintenance: first with a knit stitch and then a purl. Cast off; block.

My early projects were for my bear, Growsly: first blankets, then sleeping bags for his camping trips in the aft salon of our traveling school house.

Now, in adulthood, I am still knitting for children. Kids knits are cute, fun, and relatively painless in that they are ... for small people. The challenge is not lost in small garments, however.

We hope our kids, or our friend's kids, will love the sweater, the socks, the hat, or jacket we knit. We choose the colors, the soft yarn, and the pattern with courageous thoughts of a small child loving our creation, maybe even on the level of a favorite blankie. The challenge is that children choose their own favorites.

My quest: to develop a line of casual, handmade kids clothes that are loved, and can be loved hard. It will be a line that Growsly (my bear) could appreciate and my son Charlie will more than tolerate.