[Nfb-krafters-korner] Yarn Humor: Gift Giving

[Blindhands at aol.com]

I love it!
 
Joyce  Kane
_www.KraftersKorner.org_ (http://www.krafterskorner.org/) 
Blindhands at AOL.com   

 
In a message dated 9/15/2013 4:57:15 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
dogwoodfarm at verizon.net writes:

Writer,  illustrator, and knitter Franklin Habit joins us for his monthly 
column  featuring humor and insights into a yarncrafter's life.

To be a  needleworker of the gift-giving sort is to live your life with one 
eye on the  calendar. As I write this it's late summer,­ but I'm 
already  thinking
of December. I have no choice. The holidays inevitably require a  bit of 
gift knitting. If I hope to show up with something other than a ball of  yarn 
and
a promise, the planning must begin now.

Let me clarify that  I am not a knitter of the 
everybody-gets-a-matching-hat-and-mittens variety. I  admire those folks. They have largesse. They have 
stamina.
They have stout,  resilient hearts; because to be a needleworker of the 
gift-giving sort is also  to live your life in a perpetual state of heartache. 
Or
maybe I mean  heartburn. Probably I mean both.

One of the hard lessons we learn when  we fall in love with needlework is 
that not everyone has fallen in love with  needlework.You finish that first 
really
successful crochet hat, and it's  beautiful and it fits, and it's so much 
nicer than anything from the store,  and you think of all the people you love 
who
are walking around in  store-bought hats.

Your heart, it breaks.

So you stock up on  yarn and patterns and start whipping out hats. This one 
gets a hat, that one  gets a hat, hats all around! Wrap 'em up! Pass 'em 
out!
And for every hat  recipient who screams with joy that she will never wear 
anything else ever  again, ever, not even to the beach or fancy weddings, you
have five who  glance at your visible expression of affection rendered 
painstakingly in yarn  and say, "Oh, thanks," put it back in the box forever, and
change the  subject to whether their goldfish is depressed enough to need 
talk  therapy.

Your heart, it breaks.

This is why it's easier to get a  kidney from me than a pair of socks. Yarn 
is precious. So is time. Yarn plus  time is a luxury gift. Not everybody is 
deserving
of it, not even the  people you might think to put at the top of the list.

I once had a  friend-we'll call her Trudy-who was quivering with excitement 
at knitting a  spectacular cabled afghan for her dearest childhood friend's 
wedding.
She  spent two months swatching and planning an afghan so elaborate and 
original  that it could well stand among the great cultural achievements of our 
 age.
I'm serious: Warhol's Marilyn, the music of John Cage, and this  afghan. 
She balked when faced with the cost of the yarn (I won't tell  you­-I'll 
just say
there was yak involved); but this was an heirloom  gift for a friend who'd 
been there for her first scraped knee. They had been  allies through braces, 
breakups,
college all-nighters, and evil bosses at  terrible entry-level jobs. She 
was the kind of friend you know will run to  your house after you die and toss 
all
your trashy novels into the  fireplace, then tell everybody at the funeral 
you were deeply into  Proust.

Trudy finished the afghan and left it elegantly wrapped among  the wedding 
presents, feeling smug. She waited for the reaction. The hugs and  the happy 
tears.
She got a note that said, "Thank you for the cute  blanket."

Visiting the newlyweds a few months later, she spotted it  lying in a 
corner of the guest room being chewed by the cat. "I guess he loves  the flavor!" 
said
the bride.

"At least," said Trudy, "the stupid cat  appreciated the fiber content."

When I contemplate giving a piece of  handmade anything as a gift, I always 
pause and consider whether I could  handle it being used as a cat toy. If 
the
answer is no, I give something  store-bought.

Unless I decided to make a cat toy. Cat toys are fun to  make.

For Kitty, With Love by Franklin Habit | Lion Brand  Notebook

-

Writer, illustrator, and photographer Franklin Habit  is the author of It 
Itches: A Stash of Knitting Cartoons (Interweave Press,  2008-now in its 
third printing)
and proprietor of The Panopticon  (
the-panopticon.blogspot.com),
one of the most popular knitting blogs  on Internet. On an average day, 
upwards of 2,500 readers worldwide drop in for  a mix of essays, cartoons, and 
the
continuing adventures of Dolores the  Sheep.

Franklin's other publishing experience in the fiber world  includes 
contributions to Vogue Knitting, Yarn Market News, Interweave Knits,  Interweave 
Crochet,
PieceWork, Cast On: A Podcast for Knitters, Twist  Collective, and a 
regular column on historic knitting patterns for  Knitty.com.

These days, Franklin knits and spins in Chicago, Illinois,  sharing a small 
city apartment with an Ashford spinning wheel and colony of  sock yarn that 
multiplies
alarmingly whenever his back is  turned.
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