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Christmas is a month today, but unlike many in blog land, I rarely knit for Christmas gifts.
This lesson, learned the hard way, was clearly expressed to me one year at Toronto's One Of A Kind show.
An exhibitor, with a booth filled with wonderful hand knit scarves and wraps talked to me about knitting. She asked if I knit for myself or others. That was many year ago and at that time, I knit almost exclusively for others. Not that anyone asked me to knit for them. Not that anyone truly appreciated what I knit for them. But my outlook on life, at that time, was to do for others and forget Brenda. Thankfully, that stage has passed. And the passing was due in no small part to that exhibitor.
When I told her that I knit for others, she told me the story of knitting her first sweater. She knit it for her Dad. It took months to finish and when she gave it to him, he looked at it and asked "What the H--- made you think I would ever wear something like that?"
A harsh lesson. Since that time, she informed me, she knit only for those that asked for something hand knit, or to sell. Her rationale was that if they paid for it, they wanted it.
Her words struck home. I have known first hand the disappointment of never seeing the gifted, hand knit article worn. Ever. So from then on, I have knit primarily for myself. At least I know the recipient - me - likes what I knit.
All of this is a long way of saying that I have no gift-giving knitting to do. So what should I knit next. Those waiting the longest in my queue are The Must Have Cardi.
The Waterloo Fairisle
from Knits From the North Country
EZ's seamless yoke sweater with Alpaca purchased at the 2008 Knitters Fair. Just to name a few.
Decisions. Decisions. Then of course, I could do some Christmas baking.
4 comments:
I am blessed (cursed?) with loved ones who appreciate and wear my handknits. The give me compliments, show up for visits wearing them, and let me know that they are wearing holes in their favourite slippers.
My dad appreciates my work well enough that when he couldn't enjoy slippers I'd knit, he gave them back so I could give them to someone else who could use them. And I will, to the brother-in-law that wore holes in his!
I learned that same lesson from my darling daughter when she was still a toddler. Blessed early with complete sentences, she clearly told me somewhere south of her second birthday that "these clothes are too itchy. I don't want to wear them." She then took off the offending garment and with that killed my romantic notions of clothing her head to toe in wooley love for the rest of her childhood. When next I picked up the needles it was for me and all me and nothing but me. Okay I knit for my husband but only because he asks nicely and offers to go and get the wool himself.
I vote for the EZ seamless - mostly because I want to see you do it before I try it!
I learned the same lesson. But my family always has something they ask for. WHich is fine. I like making things better than buying gift cards (although I do that too...)
Every year I say I'm not knitting for Christmas, and every year I do. Insane.
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