How to say “no” when someone wants you to knit for them.

I had an uncomfortable experience a few days ago. Somebody asked me to knit for them and I didn’t handle it particularly well.

It started a week ago when a friend admired my socks. I told her I had knitted them and she immediately asked if I’d be prepared to make a pair of “WWI army socks” for a charity display later in the year.

I happily agreed because the charity is one I am eager to support and I’ll get the socks back afterwards. I’m even happy for the charity to raffle them off as a bit of a fundraiser if they wish. There are some people and groups I’m delighted to have the chance to support through knitting and this was one of them.

Somebody I would regard as an acquaintance overheard this and immediately asked if I’d knit a cowl for her. I should have declined straight away but I dithered and she ended up saying she’d pop around to my house one night and show me what she wanted.

So there I was, standing in my kitchen looking at three balls of the squeakiest 8ply acrylic which she hoped I could used to replicate the 2ply, machine knit cowl she had in her hand.

I explained that the yarn she had would not produce a similar fabric and the task would take about four or five hours. She had mentioned that she’d pay me for my work which made the next part easier, but when I said I charge $20 an hour and she’d be looking at around $80-$100 her enthusiasm waned.

The cowl lady is going to ask one of her neighbours who knits to undertake the task instead and I don’t have to knit something I really don’t want to knit in an unenjoyable yarn. Although the outcome was satisfactory the whole thing was kind of uncomfortable.

I don’t begrudge someone for asking me to knit for them. Non-knitters don’t understand the time investment involved in something as simple as a scarf. Also, they often think the knitting obsessed are looking for opportunities to knit things. They don’t know that the knitting obsessed have Ravelry queues that exceed even the most optimistic life expectancies.

The thing is, I should have felt as comfortable in saying “no” when first asked as she felt in asking me to knit for her in the first place. I didn’t because I couldn’t think of a polite way to decline.

Because it’s always easier to think of things after the event, I’ve come up with some polite ways to say no when asked to knit something I don’t want to knit.

“I’m sorry, but the list of things I want to knit already takes me up to the end of the decade”. I don’t have room to squeeze in anything else”.

This one (above) wouldn’t have worked for me because I had just publicly agreed to knit a pair of socks for charity. Maybe something like this would have been better:

“While I do knit a few charity items each year, I don’t knit items to order.”

If you can get the tone right and not come off sounding too blunt, you could try:

“Sorry, I can’t”. 

If someone is pushy enough to ask you why you can’t knit for them, you can follow up with one of the other responses.

Have you ever been asked to knit something for someone you wouldn’t normally knit for? How did they react? Are you actually happy to knit for people who ask out of the blue?

I’d love to hear about your experiences so leave them in the comments, and remember that every comment left between 14 and 30 April has a chance to win you a copy of Patons Bed Jackets in Popular Yarns.