do your GC still want to wear your handknits?

Berger de France (I think that's how it's spelt) has some lovely, trendy patterns DGSs seem to like them and wear them. Oh, and despite the name the patterns are in English.

My DIL knits the most wonderful creations, she's very talented and didn't really start knitting until her first pregnancy. I just knitted your standard matinee jackets etc - whereas she sent off to France for patterns and managed to knit whilst trying to translate the patterns into English. At the moment she is knitting me a lovely shawl. I haven't been able to knit for a few years now due to arthritic pain in my hands,

I admit to not knitting - I can do the stitches and I think I can follow a pattern but the end result is rarely what I intended - but when my GD was expected I knitted a few simple baby sweaters. I was very pleased with them but I think I only saw one of them actually on my GD. I felt rather proud of my humble efforts but now I realise that GD's mum is a far better knitter and produces cables and fancy patterns so my little efforts were probably a bit simple... never mind, they gave me some pleasure.

My mum did a lot of knitting for the family and my late son would ask her to knit him at least one big jumper every year right up until he died. He said that they grew with each wash (they did!) and he and his friends loved them for their sloppy joe-appeal. He said that the last one had been stolen from a pub in Camden so someone else must have fancied one too...

I don't knit for small children, but am about to start knitting for my first grandchild - on order

However, I've knitted over the past few years for my own grown up children and my future SIL - I find that as long as I knit things that are somehow trendy, they do get worn and are popular. And my bunch are happy to handwash 'artisan' wool (costs a fortune but at least I am supporting the British wool industry). This year my son wanted a snood and I knitted him a gorgeous charcoal one and he loves it, he says he feels like one of the knights in Game of Thrones

MargaretX any chance of a link to the pattern for your favourite gilet please? I'd love to have a go at knitting one for myself.

Knits have to be fashionable, non-scratchy, machine washable and ideally can go in the tumble drier if we want to see GC wearing them! The non-scratchy is the most important feature.

Sorry Riverwalk - but knitted hoodies are very fashionable this winter. Teens of all ages are wearing them happily, my 18 year old son has one. It's really nice, a charcoal cabled one. What they wear this year, the younger ones will be in by next. The problem isn't that it's been knitted, it's that it doesn't look like something from Jack Wills, Superdry, Abercrombie&Fitch or Hollister, H&M and so on. My niece at only 7 was denmanding specific clothing and I have been told that most boys are even more clothing conscious.

www.thewhitecompany.com/the-little-white-company/boys/boys-clothing/fairisle-boys-hoodie/

I rest my case. They also do a very nice cable-knit gilet.

DGS (6 nearly 7) was delighted with his hand knitted (not by me!) very long Dr Who scarf. I knitted ponchos for both DGDs last winter but never saw them wearing them - probably too warm for indoors and neither wind nor waterproof for outdoors. However, I recently spotted the ponchos, one on Big Ted, one on a doll. DGD1 tells me they are very easy to put on and take off. Think I might stick to knitting doll's clothes from now on - at least they won't grow out of them before they are finished.

I think it's more likely that children in the UK just want what their friends wear.

children in NZ still wear hand knitted garments, but not very many in the UK I think. Or is it the mums don't want to hand- wash?

All my DGCs wear handknits..but I don't knit them!! There is a fab knitting group in town and thy do amazing things. I think it is colour that has a lot to do with wearability for youngsters. Tak a look at the Boden motifs on T-shirts and tops and recreate similar in a jumper and I am sure they would be acceptable!

A knitted hoodie? I don't think so!

My 3 don't wear hand knits and never have, even when they were babies and even when they have asked for a particular cardigan. However they are always requesting knitted toys, especially dinosaurs, so I am always kept busy

The girls 8 and 10 do like my all wool jackets ( really warm and comfy)but the boys haven't worn anything knitted since they were 2.

I still like my own knitted gilets for home wear, have one in navy and one in dk brown and the latest is purple. I knit one each year.

Whatever floats your boat Margaret

Good idea, janerowena, thanks

Ha ha, handcuffs might be an idea! Must look for a pattern. Don't like knitting big things, so could carry on knitting for charity. Stops me having evening munchies.

I misread your post margaretm74 and thought you said 'handcuffs! Should have gone to S.........

My youngest granddaughter stopped wearing handknits (not cuffs) at 5 or 6, she said they were itchy.

It happens. This is the reason I only knit for myself now or if DiL or DD asked me to knit something specific for one of the GC. Wool is too expensive and our time too valuable to be wasted in this way.

Maybe if you let them choose the style and pattern, they would. It might be worth popping into somewhere like Next and seeing what sort of thing is fashionable if your GCs live in a town. Kids in the countryside aren't as fussy. They aren't as pressured by their peers to have the latest fashions. It starts at a very young age in cities. A knitted hoody would go down well with both sexes, I would have thought, but let them choose the colours.

They are 8 and 12 btw.

I think mine would so long as I could knit Star Wars or anything Scouting into a sweater. Think they would be well impressed!

Hate knitting now though. Sorry kids.