Its a lovely jumper and will no doubt be well worn in the near future. I have always been an organiser, and never see any advantage in doing something that you feel annoyed or tense doing. why not spend your time doing something you enjoy? So I organised a skill swap amongst friends from when we were young mums. I am pretty good at knitting and keep a good tension on , so it looks very good but oh how I hate sewing the garments up, so a lovely jumper can be ready to use but sill in bits waiting for me to sew it up and I am rather a perfectionst so am not happy with my quality of sewing. I am also quite a good baker and have an inventive mind to make unusual cakes. So what you do is this. The person wanting a cake provides all the ingredients, and you make the cake,. The sewing queen can sew my cardingan up bautifully. This way we use our good skills, that are then very much appreciated by the reciever, and who will very likely sing your praises and thank you for your efforts. Result? No money changes hands, you do the enjoyable - to you - job and avoid the thing you really dislike. Things are finished off and enjoyed , and every one ends up in a good state of mind, and not throwing the garments or the cake in the bin!! I also did this on a larger scale with a group I was with. What we did is had little gold stars stuck on like a loyalt card idea. Every time you did something you would be paid 1 or more stars, which you collected. Then you need those wretched curtains cutting and the hem taken up. So look down the list where we put our skills on offer. find the sewing person and pay with your gold stars and hey presto , job done satisfactorily and at no money costs to you. this way you do not have to swap directly with someone to g et your job done. If you take up this idea and use it please pay me for the idea!! I would like you to put 50pence or £1 in the RNLI tin, or the Air Ambulance or cancer research tin. Hope this idea can spread and spread, like a stone thrown into the water. Oh and another little bit of fun is when someone sees the lovely aran sweater your child is wearing and asks "Is that home made?" and yo reply Yes of course. Well it has been home made - but not by you of course , but they dont need to know that!! Start making up your lists now !!
