Knitters often joke about the “sweater curse”, which is when you knit a present for a significant other and then the relationship promptly ends. This dynamic can also play out between friends.

Imagine this scenario: you are someone with a very clear sense of what you like to wear: comfortable t-shirts, jeans, and your favorite hoodie. Then someone gives you a hand-knit sweater…

a) You don’t wear knitted clothes, and the knitter didn’t bother to notice. Even if they did notice, it seems they didn’t care because they are trying to change you from a fleece and hoodie-person into a turtleneck sweater-person.

b) The sweater doesn’t fit you. The itchy wool turtleneck feels like it’s strangling you. There are all these fussy cables that make you look fat. It sags at the armpits. It’s too short. The sleeves are too long.

c) The sweater is in a horrible color that doesn’t match any of the rest of your wardrobe. Has the knitter not even been looking at you?

d) The sweater is made from very expensive wool that has to be hand-washed with baby shampoo and dried flat in the sun. (Great! More chores!!!)

e) The knitter says they spent a thousand hours on it and they “knit love into every stitch.” 

Oh my God, now you feel guilty AND suffocated. There is too much pressure and expectation in this relationship. It has to end! 

Voila… The Sweater Curse has struck again!

The poor knitter has just wasted many hours of misdirected energy. They put more time into their knitting and fantasies of how the gift would be received, rather than getting to know the person who was the object of their affection.

The truth is that when a gift comes with a load of emotional baggage, it is no gift at all. It is a burden. Wanting to receive unending praise for such a “gift” is manipulative, passive-aggressive hostage-taking.

I have been on both the giving and receiving end of the sweater curse. I’ve received hand-knit presents that were too precious to use because the material was not appropriate for my lifestyle. I’ve also given presents to people that didn’t fit properly and then the present went unused, was donated, or thrown away.

A Lesson in Gift-Giving:

I once knitted my mother a beautiful wool sweater from this gorgeous olive-green yarn.

But it turned out the shoulders didn’t fit quite right. A few years later, she unraveled that sweater, used the wool to knit a shawl, and gave it back to me. 

At first I felt incredibly hurt. She had unraveled and re-gifted me my own sweater?!

But then I had to laugh at myself. The fact that she unraveled my sweater to make a gift for me was a wonderful lesson in the impermanence of objects.

My mom said that with every stitch of yarn that went through her fingers, she felt like she was touching my hands, my love for her, and multiplying it by making something to give back to me. She hadn’t destroyed my gift. She’d doubled it by giving each of us a story of one ball of yarn, touched by two generations of women expressing our love for each other through handmade gifts. That’s actually pretty incredible!

Now, when I look at this green wool shawl, I think about my mother and how grateful I am that she taught me that a person doesn’t have to be overly sentimental about objects. It’s the relationship that’s important; not the object.

Gifts don’t have to be overly sentimental or emotionally burdensome. A true gift means giving something with no strings attached (excuse the pun). The person receiving a gift should be free to unravel it, sell it, wear it, give it away… whatever best suits their needs. 

At its best, knitting gifts is basically a loving-kindness meditation. You think about the person you are knitting for. With each stitch, you weave in love, compassion, and good wishes for health and peace.

I recently knit my son a sweater and I was astonished by how much he loves it. He wears it every chance he gets. It’s the right color, the right fit, and the right material for him. I involved him at every step of the decision-making process.

He loves this sweater so much that I knit him a second sweater so that he can rotate between the two of them.

“Maybe buying a sweater is cheaper,” my son said, “but this is so much better because it is made with love. And it can be made exactly the way I want it.”

When you get it right, a handmade gift can be the best thing in the world.

Five Tips to Avoid the Sweater Curse:

There is a world of difference between what is fun for the knitter to make and what the person receiving the gift might actually want to wear.

I’m overgeneralizing here, but most people seem to prefer wearing a simple, stockinette-stitch piece in one color, made from a non-fussy fabric that they can throw in the washing machine. For advanced knitters, this type of project can be a bit boring because it doesn’t show off any of our fancy skills. But when you want to avoid the Sweater Curse, it’s best to play it safe by sticking to something really simple.

Tip #1 — Involve the person (or a trusted ally) in the project. Ask if you can look through their closet to determine their favorite color scheme. Take measurements from their favorite sweater. Ask them what they want. Ask the person if they are allergic to dyes or materials: you don’t want to give a wool sweater to someone who is allergic to wool. As if they have ethical objections to animal-based fibers.

The surprise factor: I know there is a fantasy of giving a gift as a surprise. If you aren’t sure if you can execute the gift well, you can quietly give up without them being any the wiser. The pressure of creating a custom-made garment that either never arrives or is poorly constructed can ruin a relationship. (But then, if a relationship is ruined by a few dropped stitches, then perhaps it wasn’t on firm footing in the first place.)

Tip #2 — Choose smaller projects. Hats, scarves, cowls, fingerless mittens, cotton washcloths or dish cloths, kitchen towels, bath mats. These small projects can be completed in a weekend, and are relatively low stakes.

Tip #3 — Budget a reasonable amount of money and time on this gift. DO NOT spend 900 hours and hundreds of dollars on material. This is too much of a burden to put on the receiver of a gift. Use cheaper material, like cotton or polyester.

Tip #4 — Choose the right yarn. Consider your audience: what material will they appreciate? Is this the kind of person who will handwash their cashmere sweater? Is this a person who just needs to throw the object in the washing machine and dryer? Do they have pets? Children? Will the item get stained? Are they allergic to wool or synthetics? Are they vegan?

Tip #4 — Choose the right colors. Black, charcoal gray, and navy blue looks good on most people. But more importantly, what colors does this person usually wear? Do they like stripes? Do they like bright yellows and reds? If you don’t know this person well enough to know the colors they prefer, don’t knit them a sweater. If you want the item to be loved, choose something that’s similar to what you already know they love.

Tip #5 — Size and fit. The safest choice is to make something that doesn’t need body measurements. Dish cloths, shawls, blankets, pillows. The next best choice is to ask to borrow and measure one of their favorite items of clothing and use this as your model for whatever you make. If you don’t know this person well enough to ask them (or a trusted ally) for measurements of their favorite item of clothing, DON’T make them clothing as a gift.

I hope you’ve found these tips helpful! If you like what you’ve read, consider signing up for my newsletter. Newsletter subscribers will receive monthly-ish emails with updates on my writing works in progress, book reviews, and updates on my Slavic Spirits series, which is about Polish and Slavic folklore and mythology. Happy knitting and happy reading!