Author: Stefanie Snider

Novelist, wife, vengeful harpy.

Why I Won’t Knit for Free

Stefanie Snider

Lately I’ve been taking my knitting along to work with me. You know me and my fidgety fingers: if there’s spare time to be had, I’m using it.

I’ve sold some of my knitting in the past to coworkers and friends-of-friends. I knit for free for family, of course, but even then, depending on the project, I’ve been known not to get around to it for a really. Long. Time. I’m working on this blanket for my husband…at this point he’s wanted a blanket for three years.

Anyway.

One of my coworkers asked if I’d ever auctioned off any of my knitting. Oh no, I thought, here it comes.

“…because my nephew’s hockey team is looking for items to auction off…one lady’s mittens sold for sixty dollars!”

I never really know what to say in these situations. I’m not great at saying no. So what came out was something like, “No, I don’t knit unless it benefits me. Sorry,” which, while true, came out wrong and totally makes me sound like a bitch. Here’s what I meant:

I won’t knit for you for free because:

1. Knitting takes time. This is listed first for a reason. My time is valuable to me. I like to spend it in ways I enjoy, which, when it comes to (free) knitting, means at my own leisure and on projects of my choosing. Believe it or not, even someone speedy like The Yarn Harlot can take 16 hours or more to knit a single pair of socks. I can do a lot of other things in 16 hours.

2. Knitting costs money. True, I have the needles already. But if I’m making your project for free, I’ll need to supply yarn. I’ll either need to give up some of my stash, which cost me money, or go purchase new yarn, which will cost me money. Either way, I’d be paying to do you a favour. Not happening.

3. No one works for free. Do you know how much money those mittens would “cost”, in real-life terms, if I charged by the hour? Do you realize that I’d have to give up other things in my life to make the time to knit for you? Would you come over and make me 16 free dinners? Or wash 16 loads of my laundry for me? Why not?

4. It’s my hobby, and therefore it needs to benefit me. When I knit for myself, this is a no-brainer. I get to use the end product: wear the sweater, use the gloves to keep warm, revel in the luxury of perfectly-fitted socks. When I knit for family, in ways that’s even better: I take time to pick just the right project, and colour, and yarn. I sit and smile to myself, imagining the recipient enjoying whatever it is that I’m making. It makes me no money, but it’s incredibly rewarding. If I donate my knitting to a charity — which someday I’d like to — I’ll still feel the warmth of knowing I’ve kept a preemie’s head warm, or gotten a handmade bear to a child with cancer, or whatever.

When I’ve knit for paying customers, that glowing feeling is replaced with cold, hard cash. Still beneficial.

If I give you something to auction for a league sport, neither of these things happens. You could just as easily sell chocolate bars.

5. I plain don’t feel like it right now, which means forcing myself would make it feel like work, and we’ve established I don’t work for free.

This isn’t the first time this has come up since I taught myself to knit. It’s kind of strange, if you think about it: asking someone (oftentimes a mere acquaintance) to give up hours and hours of their time and some of their money, as if it’s something you’re entitled to. Sure, I enjoy my knitting, but I bet there’s lots of mechanics who enjoy their work, and I don’t see them giving away free engine overhauls.

We All Go a Little Mad, Sometimes…

Stefanie Snider

“She might have fooled me, but she didn’t fool my mother.” – Psycho, 1960.

(source)

F-O-C-U-S Spells…Ah, Fuck It.

Stefanie Snider

I’m in one hell of a slump.

I don’t know if it’s the general blue feeling I’ve been experiencing lately, or my propensity to take on WAY more than I can actually handle, but…I’m frozen. I feel like I can’t get anything done. I have a million projects on the go, and rather than focusing on one at a time and seeing it through to completion, I find myself dancing around sticking my fingers into all of them and finishing nothing.

I like to think I’m driven. I like to think I can master this whole discipline thing. But frankly, discipline isn’t all that much fun. It’s easier to waste time on the internet. It’s easier to wait until the perfect moment comes along. It’s easier to blame my lack of productivity on those absent douchebag Muses (who, by the way, are not getting the raise they requested).

But really? It’s me. Of course it is. I’m the one finding excuses. I’m the one wasting time on things that don’t matter. I feel scattered and overwhelmed right now and I’m having a hard time digging myself out of this hole. (Yes, I know I’m being whiny. And yes, I know I don’t have patience for whiners. But I’m not perfect, and it is what it is.)

I know, in my heart of hearts, that the only thing that will fix this is — you guessed it — focus. I need to pick the one thing that’s more important than all those other things and pummel it until it cracks and something wonderful falls out.

Now if I could only figure out what that thing is…

You May Be Luckier Than You Think

Stefanie Snider

Used with permission from Debbie Ridpath Ohi at Inkygirl.com

 

…I just need to keep telling myself that.

The Deadly Mrs Doubtfire

Stefanie Snider

If Hollywood insists on “rebooting” all our old favourites, maybe they could scare it up a little? I would pay money to watch this version.

See some other recuts in my previous post.

Victorian Surrealism: Art by Jeffrey Harp

Stefanie Snider

“Chorus”

“In the Garden”

“Polyphemus”

All art in this post © Jeffrey Harp. See more from his Victorian Surrealism collection on Flickr.

Excerpt from “You Only Live Once”, a Horror Story by Stefanie N Snider

Stefanie Snider

“What they don’t tell you is what it feels like not to die.

They don’t tell you that the casket isn’t actually padded; that there’s only a bit of cushion under your head and shoulders, and that’s for your family to feel better, not you. You’re supposed to be dead.

They don’t tell you that the backs of your clothes will be cut away, and that you’re not so much wearing them as being covered by them, like lying under a quilt whose pieces are unattached. No one worries about decency, or dignity for that matter, when it comes to dead guys.

There’s no such thing as comfort, when you’re supposed to be dead. Take me: my left leg is broken just under the knee, because by the time they found my body it had stiffened oddly to the side. It’s all in how you fall, see, and it’s hard to worry about the convenient alignment of your body when you’re trying not to die in the first place. They cracked the bone to make it lie neatly in the casket, in case an inquisitive relative (nosey, they said, because they didn’t know I was listening) should happen to peep under the closed end of the box. They want you to look like you’re just resting, like even if you were able to get out, you’d still be there because it’s just so damned comfy.

No one sleeps like this: body ramrod straight, arms on chest, hands twined together. When you go to bed tonight, try it, then tell me if it’s how you’d want to spend eternity.

God, I hope I wink out before eternity.

At least now they’ve stopped fussing at me. I wouldn’t have thought myself a prudish person in life, but somehow when you know that you’re being stripped out of your soiled clothes and laid out, naked, to be washed by strangers, you develop sudden surprising shynesses. You try to remember whether you showered the morning she killed you, and whether or not you wore clean socks. It becomes paramount that the rubber-gloved attendant now seeing to your final needs not be embarrassed or disgusted on your behalf.

That’s not how you’d be remembered, if you could have a say. If they could hear you.”

– from You Only Live Once, a short horror story by Stefanie N Snider.
Get your copy from Amazon or Smashwords now!

Halloween Food: Make a Meat Head

Stefanie Snider

This would be a fantastic centerpiece for a Halloween party*. You’ve got a month left to harvest I mean, purchase a skull…

Get the recipe at The Rogue Cookie. (Photo by EmergencyFan2000 on flickr.)

*For extra credit, set it nonchalantly on the table at a regular party and wait for the screams!