Dichroic Reflections

on using heirlooms

I was reading Lene's comments about using heirlooms earlier, and mostly I agree with her. I do believe that I put too much work in a knitted item for it not to be used - of course, the flip side to that is that if I expect someone to use the things I make, I'd better put in the effort to - oh, dear, my professional side is coming out here, I want to say to "validate" the item and make sure it's fit for its intended use. Or in knitting terms, to make sure it fits, and that it isn't going to fall apart when used.

I'm a little worried right now, in fact. I'm making a gift for my mom for Mother's Day consisting of a matching knitted kipah and socks, because Mom is learning to read Torah and at her synagogue women wear kipot to do so, and because my mother is just the kind of person to get a kick out of the matching socks. The worrying partis that I've just finished one of the socks, and in retrospect, it would have been better on smaller needles. It's a bit looser and more loosely knitted than I'd like - Mom's feet are a size bigger than mine, which should take care of that first problem. This is one reason I prefer toe-up socks, which are less likely to come out too big. I wanted to try this pattern this time, though, and it was fun to knit: just enough like lace to be interesting, not so much that I had to concentrate Every SECOND AND OMG A MISTAKE WHAT WILL I DOOOOOOO??? Since the yarn's not fuzzy and every other row is plain knit, you can see where you are and what you're supposed to do next and can rip out mistakes with little trauma (or no more than ripping back usually produces, anyway).

Back to heirlooms, I agree that they should be used. I also agree that they should be saved for special occasions. I just don't believe that "special" needs to mean "so special that it never happens", like an old-time parlor no one is allowed to walk through. I think "special" can mean, "because I cooked an especially good dinner tonight" or "because it's Friday" as well as "because it's passover" or "becaue we have company over". I believe in special occasions, just not so special that they never do occasion.

There is also a problem with having too many heirlooms. I have three strands of pearls, for instance, two from my grandmother and one from my husband when we got engaged. That's two more than anyone really needs. I do try to wear them all at least occasionally, to honor my grandmother and because it's good for pearls to wear them, though I confess I wear the one from Rudder most because of the sentiment. If my brother ever marries someone I really like, I may pass one strand on to her. (Though possibly not, if he doesn't get a little better at things like birthday presents. Hmph.) Similarly, I have a set of good china from Rudder's grandparents, given to us when they moved into a smaller place. I'd be happy to use it, except that I have the good china we chose ourselves, that we've received as wedding and then as anniversary presents over the years. Unfortunately, the two don't coordinate well enough to use together. I should really give a tea party some time; I have a couple of my grandmother's flower-shaped tea cups, a couple from Rudder's great-grandmother's collection, some from both sets of china, of course, some Rudder brought back from Taiwan, and a small jadeware tea set we bought in Korea. I keep trying to serve people tea when we have them over to dinner, but I never feed enough people to use more than a couple of cups. At least those look nice in our china cabinet. Someday, perhaps, I'll have a tea party just so I can use all those pretty cups. Just don't expect me to bake petit-fours.