Marie at 1 Write Way

Five Things About A Knitted Gift

The Gift

Some of you might already be aware that I gifted a handknit wrap to my friend and fellow blogger Luanne Castle. You can see her post by clicking HERE.

The design is the Floating Waves Wrap by Amy Christoffers. I love this designer’s work! I can’t best the photo of Luanne modeling the wrap, but here’s a couple of more photos that I had intended to publish.

The full wrap

I should have added something to the above photo to give it scale … like me lying alongside it. The wrap is longer than my height.

Here you can see all the colors involved with some detail.

I enjoy taking close-ups of my knitting. Even while I was knitting, I often stopped to admire the seemingly intricate mosaic design. I say seemingly because, gosh, it was a simple design to knit.

My one and only attempt at a “professional” photo.

The yarn–Rowan Kidsilk Haze–is a mohair and silk blend, incredibly soft and light.

Why Gift?

I love to knit but I can’t/won’t keep everything I knit. I knit for my mental health, my desire to create, my desire to learn. What might attract me to a particular design is not always my desire to wear the design; sometimes I just want a challenge. I want to learn a new technique or try a new yarn. Then what?

It wasn’t a problem when I was employed. I often wore sweaters, shawls and/or scarves to work … sometimes even indoors given how cold our offices often were. But I’m no longer employed. In fact, I’ve been whittling down my wardrobe because my “need” for variety has severely decreased since retiring.

So gifting seems like a good way for me to enjoy knitting without worrying about the item eventually languishing in a chest. This is not a new thing. I’ve been gifting since I was a teenager. Sometimes the recipient knows they are getting a gift; most often they don’t.

How Do I Decide to Gift?

I don’t have a good answer for this. Sometimes I’ll see a design and immediately think of who I’d like to give the completed garment to. That has happened several times, mainly with my sister Shirley for whom I managed to knit four shawls before she died.

Once I knitted a very colorful bolero-style sweater with three-quarter length sleeves. It was supposed to be for me. I had every intention of keeping the sweater for me. But when I finished it and tried it on, I immediately thought of a friend who works as an artist in a cold, damp warehouse. The sweater with its three-quarter length sleeves would serve her well.

With the Floating Waves Wrap, I thought of Luanne after I had started knitting. Something just clicked in my head, and I saw see her wearing the wrap at one of those writing conferences where the rooms are always ice-cold. It wasn’t anything she said or did. Well, as she notes in her post, we have been friends for a long time, on and off the blogosphere, so there’s that.

The decision to send the wrap to her was spontaneous. The knitting took a lot longer … lol.

Do I “Gift” On Demand?

It wouldn’t be a gift then. Let me tell you a story: Once I had a boss who didn’t know how not to be bossy. It was her nature. So when she got pregnant, she decided that I would knit a bear hat for her newborn. Yeah, she didn’t ask if I would do it. Just came in and said what she wanted. She had already found a pattern (thank goodness). I made her buy the yarn because she wanted it to be orange (her favorite color). My “gift” was my labor.

This boss was smart but immature, a loud talker and prone to outbursts. At the same time, she couldn’t handle confrontations. Eventually, I learned if I stood my ground, she’d back down. But I didn’t know that then; otherwise, I might have found the courage to say, “no, I don’t knit on demand.”

The story has a happy ending. I knitted the hat and, yeah, it was cute and she was pleased (but, really, she had to be since it was her idea) and that was the end of that. Eventually she went on maternity leave (yay!) and then quit (yay! yay!).

Will I Gift Again?

Of course! What, when and to whom are to be determined. I have lots of knitting projects waiting to be started. I’ve toyed with the thought of doing giveaways, maybe hats, scarves, and other small items. We’ll see. In the meantime …

Thank you for reading!

Wendy

Here’s Wendy waiting for the automatic feeder to dispense her lunch. Two minutes to go and she’s not taking any chances of missing her meal. She’s also hoping that Raji sleeps through lunch so she can double-dip. And, yup, that’s my spinning wheel in the corner.

Marie A Bailey

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33 responses to “Five Things About A Knitted Gift”

  1. By now, Wendy has been fed and is no doubt back to her lazy cat napping in spots of sunshine! But geez, what a stare! Gorgeous wrap, Marie. Don’t you just love it when an ‘easy’ pattern comes off as more intricate?!? I can just feel the fluff of the yarn and pillowyness of the wrap from your ‘professional’ photo attempts – Brava!

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    • Thank you, Laura! I know, this pattern was so much easier than I thought it would be, once I got the rhythm down. My only problem was the fuzziness of the yarn. When I made a mistake and decided to rip out stitches so I could fix it, the yarn was a nightmare to deal with. So I’m pretty sure I won’t be working with it again, but, indeed, the yarn created a wonderfully light and soft wrap.
      As for Wendy, her nickname is “Chunky Monkey” for good reason 😸

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  3. What a gorgeous gift! You are most generous, indeed. I have a friend who, with her mother, make baby sets and hat and mitten sets and all sorts of things that she donates to charity. Another wonderful human being.

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    • Ah, thank you, Merril. I do try to be good 😇 but I don’t always succeed 😈 … so I try harder 🙂
      My former boss was so very immature. She even tried to get a bunch of us to go out for drinks with her and had a hard time taking no for an answer. Thank goodness she only lasted several months 😬

      Yes, Wendy! Aka “Chunky Monkey” 😹

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  7. Love the knit texture, Marie. It’a really gorgeous pattern with that yarn. Luanne is fortunate.

    I often think of going back to knitting. You are right; it is relaxing and it is healthy mentally and physically. It keeps the hands loose.

    This might sound odd, but I used to love knitting so much that I found a college where I could study knitting. I obtained an honours degree in Knit Design and Technology. We also did a lot with the knitting machine. I had a boutique, and became a starving artist knitter. I had to get a paying job after that…lol.

    That was long ago!

    Love this post! Thank you!!

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    • Thank you, Resa! Oh, I wish I had pursued something in fashion and knitwear when I was (much) younger. I sewed a lot of my clothes when I was in high school and I was knitting but I couldn’t draw, I couldn’t get my ideas down on paper. Maybe I shouldn’t have let that stop me, but I probably would have wound up as a “starving artist knitter/sewer” anyway 🙂 Still, it would have been fun! Thank you for your kind words and sharing your story!

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    • Thank you, Liz! L. Marie and I had a conversation about making things for people upon request and it reminded me of that experience. Frankly, until then I never had anyone just *assume* I would knit something for them. Particularly awkward since she was my boss at the time 😬

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    • Thank you, Jennifer! We started using automatic feeders for when we’d go out of town, more to tied them over in between visits from the pet sitter. Long ago we got into a routine of feeding our cats about 4 times a day (two meals of wet food, two meals of dry) and the pet sitter comes only twice a day so the automatic feeders helped keep their routine. The automatic feeder in the photo is one we bought just several months ago. I like it because it feeds both cats at the same time. We had individual feeders before, and I (nor the pet sitters) could ever get the timing right. They would open at different times and one cat (usually Wendy) would “double dip.” Wendy is on steroids (for life) so she’s always ready for a meal. Plus this new feeder allows you to set several different feeding schedules, record your voice if you want, and has a huge reservoir. It must make some kind of sound before it dispenses the food because both Raji and Wendy will race to it right before the food is dispensed. It’s funny to watch them 😸

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      • I bet! Cool contraption indeed. Perhaps we should think about getting one for our kitties. We feed ours twice a day, with wet and dry food in the morning and dry only at suppertime. Plus occasional treats. I’m afraid of how fat they might get if we fed them more often, as they have already put on a fair bit of weight since we adopted them. Gordie still has a bit of food insecurity because he was a stray for a while before the SPCA got him. He would eat even more, I think, if given the chance. 😹

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        • Our Luisa (RIP) was a stray we took in many years ago, and she had food insecurity. One time we just put a bowl of dry food in front of her to see how much of it she would eat. After several minutes (!) we took the bowl away. Because of her, we had to regulate how often and how much everyone ate. The other thing I like about this automatic feeder is you can also determine how much dry food they get. The lowest serving is 1/8 cup which is perfect for us, but we could increase the servings if we needed to. It’s so hard to control their weight especially when one cat is always hungry and the other isn’t. I call Wendy “Chunky Monkey” because she tends to gain 😸

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  10. The picture of Wendy is hilarious as is the notion of her double dipping. 😂 😂

    The Floating Waves Wrap is absolutely beautiful, Marie! An intricate pattern well executed!

    I so relate to the idea of the gift being your labor. (You and I have had this conversation before.) Knitting, crocheting, quilting, sewing—these are all good for our mental health. I get that well-meaning people think in terms of sales when it comes to the output. But they don’t realize the stress of making a business out of something. Should we demand that everyone who cooks really well open a restaurant? My niece makes great cookies. But I don’t expect her to open a bakery.

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    • Our earlier conversation inspired me to write about knitting on demand, which is what a business would be. Work on demand. It’s hard, hard work. I follow a knitwear designer on Substack and occasionally she’ll share what it’s like to be self-employed, all the years it took her to build a clientele and a reputation as a designer. Even if I wanted to sell my work, I’d be starting way too late 😉

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