The Art of Giving: Hand Making Meaningful Gifts

Some of my earliest memories are of sitting crossed legged on the floor next to my mother while she cut out dressmaking fabric.  Almost everything I wore as a young child was made by her hand. 

 I fondly remember being in her favourite haberdashery while she picked out lace, ric rac and fastenings from the glass-topped cabinets and pored over the printed cottons (always Laura Ashley) that she would later shape into pinafores and ruffled dresses for me to wear.  She loved patchwork, too (I had a very snazzy patchwork waistcoat) and I now own the hexagonal patchwork bedspread she sewed together by hand over many an evening. 

The scraps and offcuts from my dresses would be worked into her patchwork makes. Growing up with a potter father and a mother who was a seamstress meant that making things with my hands was second nature to me, and it still is.  But when I was a child I never really understood why my parents and grandparents preferred a handmade gift or card to a bought one. 

I remember feeling frustrated that my hands wouldn’t (couldn’t!) perfectly execute the design I had in mind and to me my efforts looked messy, unfinished and nowhere near good enough to present to someone as a gift! 

It’s only now, years later, as a parent myself, that I fully understand how meaningful it is to receive a present from my children; because it’s been made with intention and I know it comes infused with their desire to please; it is in itself an expression of pure love.

Over the years, I’ve found myself feeling increasingly weighed down by the self-imposed obligation to spend money on (often unwanted) gifts for Christmas for family.  So often I find myself wracking my brain trying to come up with an idea for a gift that’s original and meaningful but that wont break the bank (buying more than one present to up the ante had become the norm). 

But this past year I made a conscious decision to reduce the anxiety that often surrounds gift giving by making presents for my mother myself. I’ve found over the years, as life seems to become busier, that I rarely sit down with the intention of making space for some creative time, despite being aware of how good it is for my wellbeing – and this felt like I was carving out some time to create something meaningful, with intention, without putting too much pressure on myself to achieve perfection.

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 Sewing and embroidery are the things that bring me most joy, so I decided to set about making something useful and pretty for my mum from my ever-burgeoning fabric stash. I began by asking her what she might find most useful: a small cosmetics bag or a jewellery pouch (I ended up making both!) without letting on what I was up to. I’ve recently been making pressed flowers artworks and, as she had admired them, I thought she might appreciate one of those too.  I picked out the flowers I know she loves, and pulled out the fabrics, trims and embroidery threads that mirror the colours and prints I think she would choose for herself.  

I started with a basic design but made the rest up as I went along, trying out different threads and trims, unpicking where necessarily and starting again, which I find the most satisfying – and liberating – way to work; and it takes the pressure off feeling the need to stick to a prescribed idea.  Once I was happy with my creations, I set about carefully wrapping them. Of course, we all know that the way a gift is wrapped and presented is almost as important as its contents.  My mother (and hers before her) was always meticulous about the way she wraps gifts and I am more than happy to carry on the tradition.  This Christmas, I tried to avoid foil and plasticised (aka non-recyclable) wrapping paper and opted for simple brown kraft paper wrapped with fabric and velvet ribbons and bows (which I know she will keep) and some of the leftover fabric I made the gifts with. I made gift tags decorated with some pressed flowers, and tiny posies of dried flowers and grasses.