Work Text:
"Our mysterious human is so kind to us," Crochet said one cozy winter day, snuggled up in a basket filled with hooks and yarns. "She gives us a home and enrichment, fun tools to work with, and yarns of every color and weight."
"She does indeed," Knitting replied, and the other crafts in the little crafting nook all nodded in agreement. "Especially this holiday season, she brought us more yarns than I ever dreamed existed in the world, and she has been crafting up a frenzy. It's our turn to give something back."
"But what?" Embroidery spoke up. "Our styles are so varied among us. What would the crafty Miss like best?"
"Surely it's me," Crochet said with confidence. "Out of all our styles, she chose mine most of all this month. I made a dozen different hats for her closest friends."
"Your evidence is flawed," Knitting said with a sniff. "Quantity is only one indicator of several. When it came to the gifts closest to her heart, she selected my services. Scarves for her grandchildren, socks for her spouse—all these and more were made in my orderly, precise image."
"You're as rigid as your stitch, did you know that?" Crochet scoffed. "I give her freedom. She whistles in her rocking chair while she Crochets. She cusses when she knits!"
"A necessary sacrifice for my quality of work," Knitting said primly. "My handiwork is soft and smooth, oh, how it glides over your skin! Yours is full of lumps!"
"That does it! You wanna take this outside?" Crochet snarled.
"Hey!" Felting yelled, before the two could tangle. "Don't even think of doing anything to ruin all that lovely yarn! We are crafts, not brawlers!"
"Felting is right," Knitting said. "We need to settle this in a contest of crafts: your best work against mine."
"I can make anything you can," Crochet snapped. "Smooth, even socks? You got it!"
"And I can work just as efficiently as you," Knitting retorted. "A hat in no time at all, coming up!"
"Oh, you're on!"
"Deal."
The first phase of their contest was quiet but tense. Crochet and Knitting huddled in opposite corners, frantically applying their crafts in unfamiliar ways.
"A weave without holes," Crochet muttered to itself. "Quite a challenge for a novice, but no match for my linked double stitch!" Smiling, Crochet selected some soft, fine yarn and got to work. The fabric quickly grew under its nimble fingers.
Across the room, Knitting bent over a sheet of paper, marking out the pattern for a colorful hat. "Stuffy! Rigid! I'm neither of those things," it huffed, adding color patterns into the rows. "I will make the most imaginative hat ever seen!" Knitting filled its arms full of multicolored yarns in jumbo weight and set out arranging them in an intricate pattern.
The second phase of their contest was filled with despair.
"This sock is beautiful, but so, so thick!" Crochet wailed, holding up the finished first sock. "It doesn't look like a human sock at all! How do I fix this? Better switch to waistcoat stitch." The thought of unraveling the first lumpy sock filled Crochet with grief, but there wasn't any alternative for the smooth, even result.
Knitting was faring no better, re-counting the stitches and sweating. "Oh no," Knit sighed. "I missed a row before the color change, but I already cut the yarn. I know! I'll join purple to itself." But the joins, practically invisible in medium-weight yarn, was glaringly obvious in jumbo weight. Knitting glared at the bulge in the fabric and frowned. "Guess I'd better start over," it grumbled.
"That's enough, you two," Sewing announced suddenly, interrupted the two rivals. "Why are you making your most heartfelt gift out of your weaknesses? Is this your best work?"
Flabbergasted, Crochet and Knitting looked up into deafening silence. Then, in slow motion, they looked down at their work.
"No," Felting supplied helpfully.
"Besides," Sewing continued. "Our human isn't in need of hats and socks. She gives them away! No, the best gift isn't something she can make for herself by the dozens. Let's think about what she needs."
"A blanket?" Weaving wondered.
"Fancy lace?" Embroidery suggested.
"Something to spruce up her home?" Cross Stitch guessed.
Crochet looked around at all the assembled crafts and thought hard. "I have an idea," it said. "There's one thing Miss never buys, which she sorely needs. . . ."
The third phase of their contest was not like a contest at all. It was better.
Knitting dove in-and-out to lay a smooth base, while Crochet leaped about to create texture. Felting labored over a dozen perfect pom-poms, and Weaving produced several intricate patches. Cross-Stitch and Embroidery added little designs and patterns to the fabric. Last of all, Sewing snagged a silky thread and fitted the pieces securely together.
As one, the crafts stepped back to admire their work.
There, on the table, lay the most charmingly-garish ugly sweater they had ever seen. The body of the sweater was covered in a sprawling holiday scene in many colors, decorated with embroidered silver swirls of snow and little stitched stars dotting the sky. Near the center of the sweater was a large Grinch and a team of reindeer made of patches, and pom-poms decorated the scene's hats and trees.
"It's perfect," Crochet sighed dreamily.
"It will do," Knitting said.
Together, they placed the sweater by the rocking chair, where their human was sure to find it.
In the morning, the crafts awoke to screams of delight. "The perfect sweater!" their crafty human squealed. "I've searched for one for years, in every store in every city. Yet no sweater was just right for me. Who could have left this?" She inspected the sweater, cooing over each new detail as she recognized the technique that made it. I can see bits of all my favorite things. Whoever made this must be a master crafter. . . as well as someone who knows me very well." Happily, she pulled the sweater over her head. "This is perfect for me. Thank you, mysterious crafter," she said to no one in particular.
And though the room remained silent, she suddenly felt very at home, there in her crafting nook surrounded by her yarn and her crafts, and she thought perhaps her words had been heard.