"Most-beloved gifts are often the least expensive"
"Daughter-in-law Laura, who works full time and travels also with her job,
very patiently, over 200-plus hours, made me a 12-by-20-inch counted
cross-stitch of 'The Last Supper.' I just cried with joy when I first saw this
handcrafted masterpiece."
I'm not going to confiscate it, but dude "least expensive?" Fabric, pattern, and floss probably cost let's say $40, which is a low estimate. Then, calculating her time to be worth $1/hour, and I'm guessing a woman who works full time and travels for her job is making at least $60K so much more than $1/hour. We're still talking a $240 gift. Where's the "inexpensive" in that?
15 comments:
And thats not even counting the cost of framing these days!
Shoot Im trying to figure out if I should wait til next christmas to gift a SIL Bethleham that I stitched for her. Much smaller piece but sill over $50 for framing!
Grrr...they are so missing the point of handmade gifts too.
I stitched a large piece and framed it and gave it to someone close to me. They later told a mutual friend that they felt gypped because they got a 'homemade' gift. Last time for me, people just don't get how long it takes or what a labor of love it is to stitch a piece. I only stitch for my mom and a few close friends who appreciate it.
So true!
This same woman will be one that has a garage sale and sells the masterpiece for $5.00 when she gets tired of looking at it. Those who don't stitch have NO idea!
Obviously NOT written by a stitcher!
It's such a frustration when people assume "handmade" to mean "inexpensive"! And it's almost always the opposite, even without factoring in one's time.
One has to be very selective when choosing a good "giftee", lol :)
Homemade *can* be relatively inexpensive in terms of materials - I've just made three pairs of mitts for a total of GBP3.49 (about USD5) but each pair took me 5-6 hours. If I factored in my time, even at minimum wage, they would be a very expensive gift!
Hope the daughter-in-law doesn't see that.... At least the gift was appreciated though, even if it was thought cheap.
By the way - what did you do about your work thing? Did you do the hand made scarf offer?
True that yo! (I don't know why I've been saying that lately. Bringing back the 90s I guess)
Hello, framing! I think people do not realize the incredibly high cost of framing.
The DIL was initially going to build a time machine, take MIL back to the actual Last Supper and snap a digital print as a souvenir. So, really, this handmade gift was inexpensive by comparison.
Ha! Ha! Ha! Good point!! It drives me crazy how people associate handwork with "inexpensive", and expect it to cost nothing!!!
At least the MIL loves it! That makes it priceless!
p.s. how many of us have wasted our efforts on the unappreciative?
To give the woman a little (little!) bit of credit.. she does write that these were priceless gifts. I'm going to assume (hopefully) that she does understand that one can't put a value on such a gift. I am also going to assume that the woman just didn't differentiate "inexpensive" with "priceless" in her mind.
That's why I have become so stingy with my stitching over the years. I absolutely refuse to make anything for anyone that I don't feel can truly understand what goes into a piece, whether it be an ornament or something much, much larger.
Homemade gifts are the best! I would rather get a gift someone made for me over something they bought any day! Anyways, that lady is out of her mind! Even before I started stitiching, I knew it was expensive. Do people not go to craft stores anymore?
holy tamoly... I guarantee an "inexpensive" gift like this costs the giver more than say, a set of fine china. Grrr.
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