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Dec. 12th, 2005 01:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adrian_turtleThe local kindergardener has discovered an interest in crafts. She loves doing things with beads, despite the inconvenience of trying to keep beads and glue away from a baby sister who is still apt to put things in her mouth. I've been thinking about introducing her to one of the yarn crafts, and regretting that I can't use my hands the way I used to, that I can't cross-stitch or crochet well enough to teach them to a 5-year-old beginner.
The first yarn craft I did was needlepoint. I think I started when I was 6, with a kit that must have been made for children, and I liked it a lot. It had a blunt plastic needle, and very coarse mesh with a big flower printed on it. My 5-year-old brother had a similar kit, only his pattern had an apple. (He was better at it than I was, which is why I'm not thinking I should wait another year, until this little girl is 6, to give her such a thing.) When I looked for beginner kits in the local craft store, the only one I found seemed too ... high femme, if that's not an inappropriate term to use for something aimed at little kids. This girl is a lot more interested in dinosaurs and horses than pastel butterflies. I know gender boundaries are defined differently than they were 30 years ago, and often more rigidly. After so long, I don't remember who gave us the needlepoint kits. It might have been my parents, or an aunt, or some grown-up friend. I don't know if the person ever worried about gender stereotypes, and whether he or she might be reinforcing them inappropriately...it was 1974, so probably. Dealing with a boy and a girl so close in age may have made it easier.
Any suggestions for more interesting or appropriate beginner kits? Or should I give her the pastel butterfly thing, along with some dinosaur cutouts of standard mesh, and bright yarn, for her to work after she has a little practice with the basics?
The first yarn craft I did was needlepoint. I think I started when I was 6, with a kit that must have been made for children, and I liked it a lot. It had a blunt plastic needle, and very coarse mesh with a big flower printed on it. My 5-year-old brother had a similar kit, only his pattern had an apple. (He was better at it than I was, which is why I'm not thinking I should wait another year, until this little girl is 6, to give her such a thing.) When I looked for beginner kits in the local craft store, the only one I found seemed too ... high femme, if that's not an inappropriate term to use for something aimed at little kids. This girl is a lot more interested in dinosaurs and horses than pastel butterflies. I know gender boundaries are defined differently than they were 30 years ago, and often more rigidly. After so long, I don't remember who gave us the needlepoint kits. It might have been my parents, or an aunt, or some grown-up friend. I don't know if the person ever worried about gender stereotypes, and whether he or she might be reinforcing them inappropriately...it was 1974, so probably. Dealing with a boy and a girl so close in age may have made it easier.
Any suggestions for more interesting or appropriate beginner kits? Or should I give her the pastel butterfly thing, along with some dinosaur cutouts of standard mesh, and bright yarn, for her to work after she has a little practice with the basics?
