Today's theme is revisiting the past, or at the very least, revisiting a past finished object. When I first skimmed the topic list for this week's post, this was the one that I initially thought would be the easiest to write about, but it turns out that I'm actually finding it to be the hardest.
I really like to knit for other people. I think that it demonstrates how much I care about them, and it allows me to share something that matters a lot to me with them. For the most part, I've been pretty lucky in that I've mostly made things for people who are capable of appreciating the fact that I've made something for them; most knitters have at least a few stories of slaving over something special, only to have the intended recipient scoff at the offering. (I've only got one story like this, and it's really not all that bad--I made a really cute bamboo kimono top for a former co-worker's new baby, and mailed it to her, and never got any acknowledgement--I had to track her down a couple of months later because I was *sure* it had gotten lost in the mail.)
But, as I've said, I've mostly knit for people who like (or at least, pretend to like) the things that I've knit them, and thus, a lot of my favourite finished objects are things that have gone to other people. I love my mother's Hudson Bay Company-style point bag, the Weasley Sweater I made for the son of the children's lit prof/Potter scholar in my department, the Tiffany mittens I made for my friend Jess. I love that all of these are things that get worn by the people who have them. (My colleague apologized for the shape of her son's sweater the last time I saw it; I had a hard time convincing her that I was just happy to see that it was being worn and loved.)
Strangely, there's nothing I've made for Mat anywhere on my Ravelry page. He's been gifted with a number of strange knitting attemps on my part: the time where I tried to create my own hat pattern (fail), a Life Aquatic hat that never fit quite right (mostly his fault for deciding to grow out his hair; my initial measurements did not take into account the monstrosity that would grow on his head), and a single mitten (from the year where he cut the tendons in his right baby finger and had his hand in a splint for the whole winter; he likes to pretend that I'm a mean girlfriend who only made him one mitten). I will soon be embarking on a quest to make him some kilt hose, so let's hope that doesn't end up in the same place. If I start in the next few weeks, I should be able to finish them by October, right? Right.
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