A quickie

Boy 2 Pom Hat
Originally uploaded by JLW in PA

When a knitter's adorable 4-year-old son asks his mother for a hat like his brother's, specifically "the one with the pom on top," what is said knitter to do? Drop everything and knit the boy a hat, of course!

We had this conversation on Friday night when he wanted me to knit rather than reading him a bedtime story. (Interesting.....) We have a little swatch that we have begun to knit together. It doesn't hold his attention for long, but he likes the rhyme we say together: In through the front door, around the back, through the window, and out jumps Jack. Sometimes he puts his hands on the needles and I put mine over them. More often, he orders me to knit and either watches a little or bounces around nearby.

Anyway, we were doing this little routine, and all of the sudden he began talking about a hat. Being a reference librarian, I immediately went into reference interview mode to learn more. I finally determined that he wanted a hat just like his brother's and that the pom pom (or "pom," as he calls it) is really important.

Naturally, I went into yarn selection mode. He wanted green (his favorite color). I pulled up some photos on the computer. We looked at the Dream in Color line. Did he like Happy Forest? I showed him my Happy Forest socks to gauge reaction. No... that wasn't quite right. What about Spring Tickle? No... What about Shiny Moss? YES! (This color looks great with his eyes - the kid has good taste.) I was prepared to order immediately.

But he still had some ideas of his own. He led me to the closet where my stash is kept and pointed to a box of yarn. I pulled it out. It was my box of felting yarns. We found every ball of green or greenish yarn in the box and laid them all out. He picked Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in color "Fern," which is a nice mossy bottle green kind of color (and, incidentally, the very same yarn we've been making our swatch out of). Fern is left over from the felted flower bag of Christmas '08.

I measured his head posthaste and the rest is history. Children do like their pom poms!