This past Mother’s Day, I read an unhappy post at a crochet group I belong to.

A fellow crocheter had made a throw for her mother-in-law, and to say that it was insufficiently appreciated is an understatement.

Then last week I saw a thread on Reddit that described how someone had gone to great lengths to make something special for the baby of a good friend, and instead of a heartfelt thank you, the crocheter got a dismissive note about the “home-made” present — a present that was an original (and very clever) design that had taken more than 30 hours to make.

Every crafter has at least one story that is similar to these sad tales, but while stories like these are legion, I want to encourage all crafters to think long and hard about whom they give their work to.

With seven billion people on the planet, you have no excuse to give your work to someone who doesn’t care.

Somewhere on this earth there is someone who is lonely or cold or in need of a hat or celebrating a birthday alone and that someone will love and appreciate your work and who is, what I think of, as crochet-worthy; it is far better to give your work to someone you have never met who will appreciate it than to give it to someone you know who won’t.

So that is what was on my mind today as I resumed work on one of two shawls that I mean to give to my mother’s long-lost cousin who — thanks to the modern ability to travel with relative ease and to find and exchange copious amounts of information with relative ease — are no longer lost.

These shawls do not work up quickly, and when I finally finish them, they will not just colorful scraps of wool joined together, they will be a reflection of what I value and how I spent my time — time that once spent, I can never get back.

As for the shawls, my progress was modest. Most of what I got done while there was still daylight was to cut lengths of yarn and determine in what order I would use them for two additional rows of the shawl I think of as “the first shawl”:

So what does it mean to be crochet-worthy? It means that the recipient recognizes that the gift is not just an object, but a reflection of the person you are and the person you want to be.