Or maybe it was something less than that. I'm still not sure. But I'm not sorry I did it.
My love of knitting began when I stole a sweater.
Except I didn't, really.
But it wasn't mine to begin with- that much is certainly true.
When I was in high school I ended up giving a ride to two other girls. We drove together for a fairly long distance- at least two hours.
One of the girls was wearing this sweater. It was made from bulky yarn. It had some lace on the front and beautiful wood buttons. The color was a soft rose. It was just beautiful. When I told her that I really loved her sweater, she gave me an icy look.
"This thing? Ugh. I hate this sweater. My aunt made it for me, so I guess I have to wear it, but I really don't like it. I don't even know why I'm wearing it." She went on for a while about how much she loathed the garment and then when I dropped her off at her destination, she left it in my car.
When we got back to school after break, I told her that I had it. I told her to come and get it. It was in my dorm room... but I didn't take it to her.
Again, I told her. Don't forget that I have your sweater. She never came by. I was hoping that she wouldn't. And she didn't.
One more time I tried. I really did tell her three times that I had her sweater. And I really would have given it back if she'd ever shown up to claim it, but she didn't.
I didn't wear it at all in high school, but I did wear it at college. I loved that sweater. I wore it with jeans and with skirts. I wore it out at nights and I wore it for cool autumn hikes. I wore it every couple of days during cool weather for about seven years.
I wore holes in it and then I darned the holes with matching thread because I had no idea that I could replace the yarn and repair it. Finally, ratty and tattered, it was time to retire my sweater. It really could not be rehabilitated even once more. It made me very sad to throw it out. It had been like a friend to me.
I thought about the girl's aunt often as I wore that sweater. I wondered if she ever thought about the sweater that she knit. She probably thought that it was neglected and unloved, but the opposite was true. I appreciated every stitch that went into it. I marveled over the lace stitching and it kept me snuggly warm when it was cold out. I took it on camping trips and wore it to the library when I studied. It went on vacation with me and I wore it on dates and it accompanied me to many exams. I remember it more than any other garment I have ever owned and to this day I can still recall the color and the pattern, some 25 years or so after I finally threw it out.
I thought about tracking down the aunt to tell her that I loved that sweater
so much that I'd literally loved it to death, but I didn't know how I could do that and not have to give up the sweater, perhaps to be returned to someone who thought of it as "ugh." So I kept it, knowing that it wasn't mine. I also wasn't sure how to find out who she was- any way that I could do that was not going to end well for me, so I kept quiet and I kept wearing the/my sweater.
My kids will occasionally lose the things I make for them. I will occasionally lose the things I make for myself, too. When something goes missing, I think about my sweater from college and I hope that whoever finds the lost hat or mittens or scarf loves their found treasure as much as I loved that sweater. I hope they wear it without guilt but with joy, for each lost item is my penance for misappropriating that sweater in 1982.
Whatever they find, I hope they love it to death- in my mind, they always do.
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Friday, January 16, 2015
You Should Sell Those!
It happens to me regularly- I'm knitting something while sitting in the stands or in waiting rooms- swim lessons, baseball games, orthodontist offices- I take my knitting with me everywhere. I'll be knitting and someone says, "Those are really cool; you should sell them."
I know that it's intended as a compliment and so I usually say "Thank you" and leave it at that. Sometimes they press further, "No really, you should sell them- you should have an Etsy shop or sell them at craft shows..." or whatever avenue of commerce they think I should take, they try to convince me to sell my wares.
But that's not why I knit, and for good reason.
I knit because I enjoy the creative process. It somehow feels good for my soul to start with a humble hank of yarn and turn it into something beautiful or functional (or both.)
I knit because having the beauty of the yarn in my hands and feeling its caress as I create each stitch is relaxing- it's my own treat to myself- each bit of knitting is a little gift.
I knit because I am making use of what I call the "in-between times." All of the waiting that comes with parenting is time I get to use- I can still watch the game or the lesson or have a conversation, but I end up with something to gift or use at the end. I knit a shawl with over 80,000 stitches in it while sitting on the sidelines during baseball practice in 2013.
If I was knitting in order to produce something commercially successful, I would use the most inexpensive yarn I could find and knit small items from them in order to maximize my profits. This is not what I do.
One of my favorite things to knit is a lacy shawl. The ones I like to knit generally take about 1 1/2 skeins of fingering weight yarn. I like to add beads to them. Usually I buy about 800 beads for each shawl I knit. If I am knitting a fairly simple pattern, I can knit a shawl in about 35-40 hours of knitting- it just takes time to produce that many stitches and knitting lace is a slower process because the pattern is more complicated and the stitches take a little longer to work.
Good quality fingering weight yarn is not inexpensive. I want something durable and beautiful, something I want to spend 35-40 hours working with. My favorite fingering weight yarns range in price from $18.50 to nearly $40 a skein. My selection is based on the number of skeins I need to purchase, colors available, fiber content and how the fiber content will react with the specific pattern.
Beads are fairly cheap- one packet of beads can be as inexpensive as $3.50 and as expensive as $9.00 for the kind that I buy. Bead price varies based on the composition, shape and size of the bead. I usually need 4 packs of beads for each shawl.
Then there is my time. I would call myself an artisan- a skilled craftsman for sure. I teach other people how to knit- maybe master craftsman is an even better title. How much is the time of a master craftsman worth? I don't even know how to answer that question. Pulling what I think of as a low-ball number out of a hat, I'll say $15.00 per hour. (Based on my knowledge, skill and expertise, I'd actually say that my time is worth much more than $15.00/hour, but I'm going to go with that figure regardless.)
If you calculate the cheapest figures possible- the least expensive yarn with the least expensive beads with the shortest knitting, I would have to charge $576 for a shawl. The materials alone cost $49.
A hat would cost between $67 and $112 depending on the thickness of the yarn and the complexity of the pattern.
A pair of fingerless mittens in one color would cost about $97.
When someone tells me I should sell my wares, I sometimes ask them how much they'd pay for something like what I've made, something beautiful, well fitting, durable, in gorgeous colors; something made with silk or merino or cashmere or baby camel or polwarth or a combination of luxury fibers. The answer is usually about a third of what I think my time is worth.
When I knit for myself family and other people I love, the cost of it all- the cost of the yarn, the supplies and my time, disappears. It's no longer a financial equation. It's making something *just right* for someone- the right color and the right fit, knit from love. Each stitch, each finished item is like giving a permanent hug- all they have to do is put on their hat or their mittens or wrap their shawl around them and they can remind themselves that they are loved by me. How much is that worth? (And yes, knitting for myself is like giving myself a hug.)
You know how, when you find the right gift for someone, you are excited to give it to them? Multiply that joy over the hours spent selecting the pattern, selecting the yarn and then making that item. Having someone squeal with delight when you give it to them is the icing on the cake, but even when it doesn't happen, a simple "thank you" validates all of the joy in the process. If you are knitting in order to sell your items, you lose all of that and it comes back to How much does it cost to make? How many hours does it take to make? What is my time worth? I don't want to do that equation when I gift to people I care about- I just want to enjoy it all.
I know that it's intended as a compliment and so I usually say "Thank you" and leave it at that. Sometimes they press further, "No really, you should sell them- you should have an Etsy shop or sell them at craft shows..." or whatever avenue of commerce they think I should take, they try to convince me to sell my wares.
But that's not why I knit, and for good reason.
I knit because I enjoy the creative process. It somehow feels good for my soul to start with a humble hank of yarn and turn it into something beautiful or functional (or both.)
I knit because having the beauty of the yarn in my hands and feeling its caress as I create each stitch is relaxing- it's my own treat to myself- each bit of knitting is a little gift.
I knit because I am making use of what I call the "in-between times." All of the waiting that comes with parenting is time I get to use- I can still watch the game or the lesson or have a conversation, but I end up with something to gift or use at the end. I knit a shawl with over 80,000 stitches in it while sitting on the sidelines during baseball practice in 2013.
If I was knitting in order to produce something commercially successful, I would use the most inexpensive yarn I could find and knit small items from them in order to maximize my profits. This is not what I do.
One of my favorite things to knit is a lacy shawl. The ones I like to knit generally take about 1 1/2 skeins of fingering weight yarn. I like to add beads to them. Usually I buy about 800 beads for each shawl I knit. If I am knitting a fairly simple pattern, I can knit a shawl in about 35-40 hours of knitting- it just takes time to produce that many stitches and knitting lace is a slower process because the pattern is more complicated and the stitches take a little longer to work.
Good quality fingering weight yarn is not inexpensive. I want something durable and beautiful, something I want to spend 35-40 hours working with. My favorite fingering weight yarns range in price from $18.50 to nearly $40 a skein. My selection is based on the number of skeins I need to purchase, colors available, fiber content and how the fiber content will react with the specific pattern.
Beads are fairly cheap- one packet of beads can be as inexpensive as $3.50 and as expensive as $9.00 for the kind that I buy. Bead price varies based on the composition, shape and size of the bead. I usually need 4 packs of beads for each shawl.
Then there is my time. I would call myself an artisan- a skilled craftsman for sure. I teach other people how to knit- maybe master craftsman is an even better title. How much is the time of a master craftsman worth? I don't even know how to answer that question. Pulling what I think of as a low-ball number out of a hat, I'll say $15.00 per hour. (Based on my knowledge, skill and expertise, I'd actually say that my time is worth much more than $15.00/hour, but I'm going to go with that figure regardless.)
If you calculate the cheapest figures possible- the least expensive yarn with the least expensive beads with the shortest knitting, I would have to charge $576 for a shawl. The materials alone cost $49.
A hat would cost between $67 and $112 depending on the thickness of the yarn and the complexity of the pattern.
A pair of fingerless mittens in one color would cost about $97.
When someone tells me I should sell my wares, I sometimes ask them how much they'd pay for something like what I've made, something beautiful, well fitting, durable, in gorgeous colors; something made with silk or merino or cashmere or baby camel or polwarth or a combination of luxury fibers. The answer is usually about a third of what I think my time is worth.
When I knit for myself family and other people I love, the cost of it all- the cost of the yarn, the supplies and my time, disappears. It's no longer a financial equation. It's making something *just right* for someone- the right color and the right fit, knit from love. Each stitch, each finished item is like giving a permanent hug- all they have to do is put on their hat or their mittens or wrap their shawl around them and they can remind themselves that they are loved by me. How much is that worth? (And yes, knitting for myself is like giving myself a hug.)
You know how, when you find the right gift for someone, you are excited to give it to them? Multiply that joy over the hours spent selecting the pattern, selecting the yarn and then making that item. Having someone squeal with delight when you give it to them is the icing on the cake, but even when it doesn't happen, a simple "thank you" validates all of the joy in the process. If you are knitting in order to sell your items, you lose all of that and it comes back to How much does it cost to make? How many hours does it take to make? What is my time worth? I don't want to do that equation when I gift to people I care about- I just want to enjoy it all.
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