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How to give and receive a hand-made gift.

So last week I had the wonderful opportunity to see my brother and sister-in-law and my sweet little niece when they were visiting from out of province. They live a looooong plane ride away, so I don’t see them often, and it was so good to have the chance. All told we only squeezed in a too-short afternoon of visiting at the museum, but it was still wonderful. 

And of course, I got the chance to give them their quilt. (This would be the quilt I posted about here, for the Quilt Festival that Park City Girl is hosting) And I must say that it was perhaps the most rewarding gift giving experience that I have had in a long time. She literally wept tears of joy (the mama, not the baby) and gushed and oohed and ahhed over it, and reminisced about all the little pieces of clothing that were included in the quilt, just as I knew she would, and she said all sorts of lovely things about how she never could have imagined it being as beautiful and as perfect as it was.

People, that is how you respond to a hand made gift! 

You see, there have been a few posts out in the blogoshpere about giving hand-made gifts and getting lukewarm reactions, (Posts here and here) and wanted to add my two cents. Among crafters, you will always be able to find a story like this: Crafter makes a lovely hand-made item, very time intensive, filled with love and meaning, and presents it to a loved one only to have it sadly under-appreciated if not down-right rejected. Everyone who makes things has one of these stories. So as the Christmas season approaches I wanted to suggest some strategies to take the risk out of hand-made gift giving. I thought this might help.

 Guidelines for giving hand made gifts:

 1. Ask your intended recipient if they would like a hand made gift: This will make a world of difference. Many people actually don’t want a handmade gift. They think it is a lesser gift (erroneously of course, but that’s what they think) and prefer something shiny and new, purchased at a mall and made by a small child in a third world country. And honestly, isn’t your art making time too precious to waste a hand-made baby quilt on someone who doesn’t want one? Now, I know all this takes away the fun of the 'surprise' gift, but imagine all the grief and time it will save you in the event of the dreaded unwelcome surprise. Plus also, the recipient gets the fun of anticipation as they look forward to their custom designed hand knit socks. 

 2. Listen carefully to their reply: Sometimes people say yes in order not to hurt your feelings. Or they say yes under duress because you are not so much asking them, but telling them - because you are going to make them this wonderful beautiful thing and then if they don’t say yes, then obviously they don’t love you. Or they say yes, but not very enthusiastically. Really listen to their tone. 

 3. Involve the recipient in design/material choices: Consult with them. What kind of sweater would they like? What colour? Take them shopping for the materials. Many a hand-knit sits in the closet because the receiver would not wear wool because they think it is scratchy, or because you knit them a cashmere baby sweater and they don’t ever put in on the baby because then they’d have to ‘gasp’ hand wash it! I know there are great arguments for all these objections, and I know that I certainly prefer to knit with high quality natural fibers, but if they say they won’t wear wool, don’t go on about malabrigo, and how you can wear a light long sleeved t-shirt underneath etc. Just don’t knit them a wool sweater.

 4. And if all else fails, only give hand made gifts to people who already make things. That’s the bottom line.  For example, Ken in accounting will not be able to appreciate that you hand knit him those socks out of merino wool. He will just see socks and think that it’s a pretty crap present. (Like that scene in The Office where Phyllis knits oven mitts for the Christmas gift swap, and then Michael Scott gets them, and is so cruelly unappreciative of them that I nearly cried!) Save yourself the time and money and just get him chocolate or an Amazon gift certificate. Life is short. 

a 'what' wreath?

A few weeks ago I had the chance to go to a small regional museum here in Ontario. Now, as I may have mentioned, my transition from Big City life to Small Town life has not always been smooth. And one of the things I've been missing is the cultural entertainment factor of the Big City. There isn't the same proximity to Galleries and Museums out here. But I saw a posting at the local library for a quilt show at the Simcoe County Museum and decided to check it out. I like quilts, I like museums, how bad could it be? Turns out it was FRICKIN' AWESOME! One of the nicest afternoons I've had on my own since I moved here. I can't show you any quilt pictures, because there were no cameras allowed in the exhibition, but you could photograph the permanent collection. The museum focuses on the history of the area, and had wonderful, weird, lovely things like vitrines full of antique taxidermied birds. The above example was collected by one Dr. Brereton in 1886.

The of course there were these. Cases full of bird eggs. So beautiful.

And don't forget creepy, aggressive taxidermied racoons.

There was also a "Victorian Main Street" which had shop front dioramas of a typical street of the turn of the century. This is the hardware store. I would kill for a roomful of beautiful little compartments like this.

But really, the crowning glory of the whole experience was this amazing thing. 

Do you know what this is. Take a guess. Its a wreath. Made of.... ok, here's a close up:

Can you tell. Yep. Hair. Its a hair wreath. I went over to wikipedia and searched 'hair wreath' and nothing came up. I love it when I stump wikipedia. (Anybody want to write an entry? There's a void in the victorian haircraft section) I did a little looking around and apparently these were popular in the 18th and 19th century. People would collect hair from a whole family or community to make one of these, so it was like a group portrait. Hair was typically collected after someone died, and one wreath could contain hair from many generations of a family. I'd heard of these things before, (I think L.M. Montgomery reference these on one of the "Anne" books) but I always imagined they'd be more like a Christmas wreath. I'm amazed by the intricacy of this. There's a crazy looking museum of hair wreaths here. Its funny how some craft forms fall out of disuse and then experience a renaissance (like quilting and knitting are currently) but I don't think hair crafting is going to experience a great new surge in interest. Unless of course Martha Stewart gets here clever hands on it and then all bets are off. Of course, now I'm interested in making one. Because all I need is another hobby.

Anyhow, on my way out of the side entrance of the museum I came upon this loveliness - a wall of hand drawn portraits of the museum's previous board members, I believe. This is only a few of them; there were tons more! Doesn't that dude in the bottom middle row look like the King of Kensington?

Regional museums rock.