Loved too well
I suppose a knitter would always like to envision their handiwork in its pristine just-off-the-needles perfected form, right? Well perhaps not…
Daughter-Kate showed me her hands upon which were her handwarmers…Fetchings’ lovingly downsized for petite ten-year-old-hands and given as a Christmas present. What I saw upon her now was a pair of, dare I say it, manky ol’ things with rips and gaps and dirt and such.
‘What happened to those? I asked, trying to keep the abject horror out of my voice.
‘Well, they need a bit of a cleaning,’ she began, ‘and I fell one day while I had them on.’ ‘…while she had them on…’ She always has them on. Every day to school. In the house on a chilly day. To play. To read. To eat. Constantly.
But then it dawned on me. Of course they’re going to be manky. They’re worn regularly and that’s a good thing. Not shoved into a drawer. Not forgotten under the bed. Not lost with disinterest. She likes them and she wears them and this is what they’re going to look like, for they’ve been loved too well.
Right, gonna hunt for needle and yarn now to do a little first aid for I’m sure she’ll be wanting them in the morning.
You have to love it when the things that you make are used and loved. Especially if it is appropriate usage, which is seems is the case here.
01 Mar 2007 at 10:56 am
Wonderful, worn and loved……makes the knitting all the more worthwhile….so casting on again for another pair. eh!
01 Mar 2007 at 11:12 am
Oh no!
You’re right though, it’s much better that they’re worn and loved than left sitting in a drawer somewhere. Those look very well loved!
Hope the repairs went well.
01 Mar 2007 at 12:01 pm
Cheryl, how lovely to see your lovingly handknitted fetchings so well worn. I think its probably the best compliment to get.Maybe you need to knit another pair? How did the darning go?
Ger
01 Mar 2007 at 8:25 pm
That is the bestest compliment! That she has worn them almost to death. You are lucky because soon she will be a teenager and too fashion-oriented to wear anything her mum might make, I suspect.
01 Mar 2007 at 9:55 pm
Nice, and sad at the same time. I don’t know about you, but I knit things that I love, and give them away as an expression of that … so to have them be worn out is kind of melancholy.
Are you going to do anything differently, now that you see how these wear?
01 Mar 2007 at 11:16 pm
Oh yes, a good sign of a knit well-loved. I thought I had lost one of mine this morning…arrgh, imagine that!! Found it though, phew!
02 Mar 2007 at 12:04 pm