Perks
12/17/07 5:12 pm
Let it be known that the only perks in a job are the ones that the employees enjoy. I saw myself ten years ago in the eyes of a guy in his early 20’s who was literally trying to make his mom’s knitting universe difficult. I could imagine the conversation that led him to begrudgingly accompany her to our LYS.
“What would you like for Christmas?”
“I dunno.”
“How about I make you something?”
“Okay.”
*two days later* “Wake up, we’re going shopping!”
“Okay.”
*30 minutes later, as Mom and Son getting out of the car*
“Mom, why are we going into a yarn shop?”
I’ll bet he felt bamboozled, like the time when I was 8 and my Grandma and Mom told me they were going to sew me some shorts. I thought they were kidding. I thought it was a joke right up to the point where they were holding bolts of fabric up to me to ask which neon solid I liked with the black print- orange or hot pink. Turns out, they were on a serious shorts-making mission.
I could tell from his questions that he was trying to make mom pay for attempting to make him something which he thought he could get from Urban Outfitters. Whenever there was a question about which direction to take with the hat and scarf combo (Knit a scarf the long way or across?), he would purposefully choose the harder (”Long is more difficult? I want a really long one. With five stripes in it.”)
This lead me to a better understanding of the knitted gift. I think that before someone gives a knitted gift to somebody else, the recipient should be forced to knit a scarf. That’s it, nothing torturous, just one scarf. When they are finished, the knitter should show them how to fix the inevitable accidental increases and dropped stitches, and if they wish to make another one, allow them. Having gone through this process myself, I have transformed from the guy who puts his handknits in a “safe” place at the bottom of the dresser drawer to a person who sees it as one of the perks of this shop that I get to wear some ridiculous hats and sample sweaters. I say ridiculous not because I don’t like the hat, but because I know that the girl at Mary’s Market who kept staring at me and eventually commented that I was wearing “an interesting hat,” meant that I looked like a goof-ball in only the way a knitter can love. In fact, as far as I’m concerned crazy = a better hat, which is the motivation behind my move from the Mohawk touque to the Mohawk ski mask, and my firm belief that as long as you’re adding some tassles, you should add some TASSLES. So thank you, Laura, for bringing these hats to our happy LYS!
dr john, yarnboy
