In years past, I never thought twice about places like Ikea selling identical art prints alongside identical flat-pack wardrobes, and I always turned to the huge departments stores whenever I needed to buy a gift. I was in Ikea last week though, buying a frame for a beautiful new Jon McNaught print that Ben bought me for Christmas (top picture), and it suddenly struck me just how differently I think about things now.
Having received that amazing print, as well as a fair isle jumper knitted by my mother (you don't get much more local, really) and making and giving handmade chocolates as gifts throughout last year – I wonder if I'll ever bother to set foot in a real shopping-centre shop ever again. It definitely wouldn't be much of a wrench if I didn't.
I've come to realise that the feeling of receiving or buying something made by someone you know, or even just buying something when you know the money is going straight to the person who made it, is unsurpassed, I think, in the world of buying things. I'm just sorry it has taken me so long to really work it out!
I've come to realise that the feeling of receiving or buying something made by someone you know, or even just buying something when you know the money is going straight to the person who made it, is unsurpassed, I think, in the world of buying things. I'm just sorry it has taken me so long to really work it out!
That jumper is gorgeous! Very envious.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more. Reading this post makes me so happy. Nothing beats handmade and independent, in all areas of everything.
ReplyDeletePs, Your jumper is STUNNING! :o I wish my mother would knit me one just like it!
Never truer, especially in our proliferative mass-consumer culture, which, don't get me wrong, has its uses and aids, but sometimes you just want one, small thing that came from somewhere special.
ReplyDeleteThere's nothing like handmade, I totally agree with you.
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Camila Faria
So true! I hardly ever set foot in a normal shop anymore, either.
ReplyDeleteI love this! We have a bricks and mortar store, as well as an online shop, that is a combination of things we design and things that are handcrafted in town. It is so gratifying to have stories for each item and to shorten the distance between the making and purchasing.
ReplyDeleteI love handmade - it is so much more personal than buying something mass produced off a shelf. I buy as much as I can handmade and I also love to make things by hand - I sell them on Etsy when I can get people to buy them. :)
ReplyDeleteWhat I love best about handmade is the fact that even if the artisan makes fifty of the same item, each one is unique because it was made by hand!
And! There is something of the energy of the person that created it in the object that has been made.
ReplyDeleteWhen I started giving handmade goods as gifts, there was a marked difference in the way people responded to those items....before they'd even been told of a gift's origins.
Handmade just has a specialness, a hum.
I'll second that...
ReplyDeleteHello Siubhan, any chance your very talented Mum knows which pattern book she used to make your cosy jumper? Looking for a new knit project ... thanks x
ReplyDeleteHi Natalya. I think it was from the Rowan Nordic Tweed book - the pattern was called Maeva, but she knitted it without the roll neck bit! Hope that helps.
DeleteThank you, I found it x Just need to work out fair isle now without getting my needles in a twist...
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