Recently, I’ve been knitting a gift for a neighbor whose 70th birthday is next week. The surprise party was last night, but the knitting project wasn’t complete.
As any knitter (or crocheter) knows, this happens A LOT.
Many a well-intended holiday gift has been wrapped up, unfinished, and put under the tree. Many a baby garment has been outgrown before completion. I once taught a knitting group that included Marlene, a far more experienced and productive knitter than me, who was working on finishing a sweater for her husband that had been started over 20 years previously.
While I am a fast knitter, I’ve made it a personal rule to avoid working to a deadline whenever possible. But this time I made an exception — although I knew there was a good chance I wouldn’t get it done in time for the party.
And boy, did this failure to meet the deadline stir up some shit memories.
For a while I couldn’t figure out why I was upset about not getting it done on time, when I had gone into it knowing that was at least a 50-50 chance. And then — I remembered.
So let’s back up a little over 40 years, to the holiday season of 1981.
I would have been 12.
My sister would have been 29.
My sister had seen a pattern for a crocheted sparkly gold evening jacket in a Woman’s Day magazine, dated 12/22/81. So the magazine probably went on sale around Thanksgiving, a month ahead of the cover date.
My sister knit, but didn’t crochet. My mother did neither. But I did know how to crochet.
And between them, the idea was cooked up that my sister would pay for the yarn, and I would crochet this jacket for her, in time for New Year’s Eve.
I think I was asked if I would do it (yes of course I’ll try to please my mother & my sister) and could I get it done in time?
I had only been crocheting for maybe 4 years or so at that point. To the best of my recollection, I had not done anything like a garment before, except maybe for a Barbie doll. I do know that in my 40+ year library of binders containing notes, yarn samples, and patterns for pretty much every garment I’ve ever knitted or crocheted — this is the very first item.
Everyone else involved in cooking up this project for me had to know it would have been a tight deadline for anyone, let alone a kid.
How the hell would I have known?
And as I recall, it was going to be my mom’s responsibility to make sure I got it done on time.
Anyone who knew our mother at that time, knows she was never on time for anything. Getting her on a plane to Chicago every year for the holidays was a complete train wreck. Finishing Halloween costumes was often down to the wire. Sewing formal dresses in time for special occasions was always a last-minute rush. The suit my mother wore to my wedding? *I*, the goddamned BRIDE, had to first shop for it, then mail her a selection of 2 or 3 suits, then return the ones she didn’t want — and finally, hem it for her the night before my wedding. (There were at least 3 other women on hand who could have hemmed the dress, probably better than I: my sister, my sister-in-law, and my mother-in-law. Not one of them did, of course. Not for me.)
Back to the evening jacket: as anyone could have predicted, I didn’t get the thing done in time for New Year’s Eve. I believe I did finish it at some point, and it got sent off, I suppose. I have no idea if it fit; I don’t know if I even knew what gauge was.
What I do remember was that the failure, my sister’s disappointment and her anger, were all my fault.
Certainly not my mother’s fault! Nor my sister’s, who apparently saw in me a way to get something that she wanted, and was mad at me when I didn’t deliver.
Blame & shame the 12YO, who got set up by two adults.