Kiss My Knits!

Speaking to yesterday’s soccer freakout on my part, let me say that while I was still trying to get my eyes open at 7am this morning, Em had her cleats on and was ready to go. She consistently said she had a great time, soooo…. back she goes!

Today, a little lesson.


Every year I make some nice end of the year gift for Em’s “dream team” of experts and teachers. Earrings, knitted flower pins, etc.

This year, I had the bright idea to incorporate some of Em’s own artwork. I decided to ask her to draw a picture for her teachers and decided I would embroider that picture onto a little tote bag for them. She drew the pictures and they were adorable, except that she also included a lot of writing. My embroidery skills are not, as the kids today say, l33t. Strike one.

I decided instead that I would needle-felt the pictures onto a journal cover. Good idea in theory, but in execution, it didn’t work so well. I couldn’t get the drawings transferred with carbon paper or pattern-type paper because the felt was so thick that I couldn’t bear down enough to get a good copy. I was not, I’m sorry, going to spend $50 on a pack of iron-on transfer printer paper so that I could transfer them that way. I finally decided to make a carbon of the drawing and needle-felt right through the carbon copy of the drawing onto a spare piece of felt for practice. The results were about as crappy as you might expect. Strike two.



Next, I decided to try to make a little felt box to maybe include a gift card or something with. I was inspired by this post from http://kneek.wordpress.com/ (which I LOVE to read). It referenced this tutorial for making baby slippers at http://carolineinckle.wordpress.com/ . I had fun! Unfortunately, I didn’t really use enough wool, so it came out rather thin and sad looking. Strike three.


At this point, I kind of smacked my head and said, “what am I doing?” The advice that I give to people who are expending a lot of time and energy on ill-conceived gifts is this: “Just because you CAN knit something doesn’t mean you SHOULD knit something.” In other words, the gift isn’t about you and your mad crafting skillz, it’s about the recipient.

With that in mind, I scooted over to my local Blockbuster and put together a little “it’s time to take a break from school!” package. A tub of popcorn, some movie theater candy, and a Blockbuster gift card, along with a handwritten thank you note and the drawing that Em had done for each teacher. I included her Resource Teacher’s aide, too, since the resource teacher has made a point of saying how helpful she’s been. It wound up costing more than the inkjet paper would have, but this was the right way to go.

Em’s teacher came up to me and said how perfect that gift was – that she went to Blockbuster all the time, so this was the perfect gift. Finally, a home run!

It just goes to show you, sometimes the simplest solutions are the best.