One unfortunate thing about parenthood is that there usually comes a time when the bond you have with your children seems to dissipate. I'm referring specifically to the point when your children reach adolescence and are no longer as dependent on their mum and dad. It's around the time that they hit puberty that kids start to come into their own which can result in a distance being created between parent and child.
Marieke Voorsluijs, a mother from Amsterdam recently found herself in a similar situation with her two sons. Voorsluijs was particularly affected by the fact that her teenage son didn't want to cuddle anymore.
So the doting mother, who is a textile designer by profession, decided to take matters into her own hands by making herself a "new" son made entirely from yarn.
"My son is reaching puberty," Voorsluijs explained. "We used to cuddle all the time, but those days are becoming scarce. Now he [would] rather hang with friends, play with his phone and listen to his iPod. Exactly according to nature’s plan. I am a good mother, so of course, I accept this, and I am happy he is a healthy kid."
"We laugh a lot about the stretching gap between his needs and mine," she added. "Him needing more of his own space and my covert needs to keep on smothering him with maternal love. So we started to [think about] how we could visualise this puberty gap. So I suggested to make a cuddly version of him."
Voorsluijs even has her own knitwear brand, Club Geluk, which offers a range of knitted items. I can only imagine her knitted son ventures far outside their usual merchandise.
In a blog post, she went into further detail about her very unique project:
"I am a professional knitter who likes to knit weird things for my brand Club Geluk. We knit realistic everyday stuff with lots of details and even wrote a book about it. We knit hams, tv’s plants, etc. To set the bar a little higher regarding my knitting skills I thought of knitting my son. He liked it and we worked together on it.
"The reactions during the process were so diverse from creepy to beautiful that we decided to make some photos in real life to place the weirdness in context. It was a fun art family art project!
"When it was finished we thought it would be a great idea for mothers with to much love for their children and need to cuddle. So they could knit there own cuddly son! My knitted son consists of: a knitted head with a cap, hands with nails and watch, knitted trousers, a knitted sweater with an obstinate slogan, knitters sneakers, and knitted iPod. Actually, the knitted son has characteristics of both my sons. The other one had just grown so much during the process that the smaller one was only able to wear it when it was finished."
The project took two months to complete which - considering how detailed the knitted son is - is actually very impressive.
This article was originally featured on CraftFactory.com
