Have you ever tried to wear something that’s too small for you? Maybe you’ve worn it in the past, but your size has changed and you put it on to find that what used to make you comfortable and confident-feeling is no longer a good fit at all. Maybe you grabbed the wrong size at the store and got home to find that there’s no hope of it fitting. Or, maybe over time and use your favorite item has shrunk. Frustrating, huh?
So, with these scarves that we are donating to survivors we want a moment of “yay, I feel good wearing this”, not a moment of “this sure is pretty, but how in the world am I supposed to wear it?”
Threads will take scarves of any color or pattern. We don’t specify how they have to look. But, we do have one requirement for our scarves. You may have noticed that they need to be at least 5ʺ by 65ʺ, and you could be wondering why…
There is a reason.
We want something that anyone can wear. Since we all are different sizes and have different style tastes, we wanted something that anyone can use if they want to after receiving it. So, while there may not be anything magical about those exact numbers, there is something important in having a standard. The work we are doing is important; it’s impacting people at a significant moment and we want to add something good and useful — not just beautiful but unable to be worn.
As we package scarves and find ourselves struggling about what to do with one that doesn’t come close to meeting that guideline we take a moment and try to put ourselves in the place of the recipient.
Imagine sitting in the hospital following a traumatic event and being offered an item of comfort. Great, right? Now imagine you open it and it’s a well-made beautiful piece of work that is 2 ½ feet long and 3 inches wide. What started as an uplifting moment turned into a moment of wondering “what in the world am I supposed to do with this item?”
So, let’s keep working together to offer comfort. Let’s put our creativity to work to knit and crochet beautiful items that survivors will enjoy. Let’s keep making them at least 5ʺ by 65ʺ.
We finished the first three “on a roll” scarves! Working on these together was a lot of fun. Some of us really felt challenged by the randomness of the roll 🙂 We are more comfortable when things have a pattern that we can follow, and that we think looks nice. But, we stuck with it and in the end were pretty pleased with how they turned out.
