No Blanket For You!

About two years ago, I started knitting a Moderne Baby Blanket (rav link), mainly because I had a huge pile of 5-ply crepe that I wanted to use up and I have a bit of a problem with delayed gratification - if I get into my mind that I will do a certain thing, I want to do it now.  After knitting three and a bit stripes, it was put away and forgotten about.

Then, when doing my WIP Round-up last year, I pulled it out of its storage place to take a photo of it.  This is how it looked when I last blogged about it:

Because it was out in the open again, I occasionally picked it up and worked a random row.  There was a baby due in February, and since this is a baby blanket I thought it was a match made in heaven.  Then there were complications with the pregnancy, so the due date was moved to the middle January, and I started working harder on the blanket.  This is what it looks like now.  I love knitting on this blanket!  It's nothing but row after row of mindless knitting.  Every now and then you need to cast off a few stitches and then pick some up, but not very often.  It's a wonderful project for knitting in front of the TV, and as a plus it looks ridiculously stylish and much harder than it actually is.  

The couple I was knitting the blanket for are Sam's second cousins.  They're really nice and we see them about six times a year, but only as a group and at family functions.  We never see them outside the family, and even though I like them immensely, I don't know them very well.  So I started thinking ... I love this blanket - will they?  Will they understand the hours of work that have gone into creating this modular masterpiece?  Will they appreciate the gift of my time and affection that it represents and take care of it accordingly?  In all honestly, these people may be the No.1 ticket holders in the fanclub of Handmade Stuff International.  They may appreciate my work, time and effort.  But I don't know them that well, and I am not prepared to gift 100 hours of my time to someone who may or may not appreciate what they are receiving.  

I really grappled with this decision, and I eventually found a solution.  They're getting a knitted hat instead - it's super cute (it has a pompom!), super quick, made from stash and I am not invested enough in the hat to care if they use and appreciate it or not (of course, I hope they do.  See how cute it is?).  Now, everyone's happy. Me especially.