Dislike knitted baby gifts from family member

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A member of our family continuously knits baby gifts for our children, there is not usually much consideration for appropriate seasons regards to age/sizing and the patterns/colours are always quite garish. We feel awful because there is clearly a lot of time and effort gone into these. The person is a beautiful knitter however she will not take any suggestions on colours, or doing a more neutral/single colour piece that would mean it can be paired with other items.

We are left with sooo many items piling up unused, many are completely inappropriate sizing so they are zero use to us. However the ones that may fit are always wild patterns or very dated styles. Photo is just recent examples

We have tried to talk to this person many times but as mentioned before they do not listen. I feel pressured to quietly donate many of them because we simply do not have the space to store so many unused items, and I would hope someone else can appreciate and get some use out of them

Our last ditch attempt is suggesting a specific pattern book so hopefully this works, do you have any suggestions? Am I being unreasonable, are these examples nice?

I really dislike them too and just politely asked people not to do because it isn't my style. I had some well intentioned family members wanting to go mad with knitting when I was expecting my twin girls.

Because they are dated. Obviously the knitter is competent but there just isn't much value in hand knits, especially ones like these where it's probably acrylic and old style patterns.

Even the modern baby knits with nice wool and contemporary patterns are a hard sell.

I know someone like this. She's constantly making baby clothes and although she's skilled they are very dated and not comfortable for the child at all.

In truth, she's not making them for anyone but herself. She likes a project and there's nothing wrong with that but she needs to recognise that they are unwanted and she can't hold people to ransom for a positive reaction or the promise of using them.

It's a bit selfish, really.

I have a house full of crochet blankets for a reason!

I quite like them, middle one has liquorice allsort vibes! Put them on for a photo then sell on vinted? Someone will love them. And going forward if your kids are old enough you just say oh Agatha has strong feelings about clothing now, I can only get her to wear preferred tasteful item in tasteful colour, if you can't do that I don't think she'll even try it on! And then hand back anything that doesn't meet the brief

Check out Rowan https://knitrowan.com/en/products/mode-mini-knits-kids-casuals
yarn is pricey but they do become pieces that can be handed down so wel worth it and styles are really lovely

I’d love them for my babies and be so proud to say they were hand made for them.

My suggestion is to sell them online. There is a market for them, so many posters seem to like them. It will be win win for all 😂

Maybe ask her to start knitting Christmas jumpers in a variety of sizes - could come in very handy

It’s because the colour and patterns are too random. Block of pink, white with black outlines in each section, causing such visual overload. Maybe she was creating some abstract design but I am getting headache looking at two of these. Only pink with white is not headache inducing. But that pink is also not the best shade of pink.

I love baking but I can’t eat sweets or will get too fat. So I am thinking of sending a particular relative cakes I experiment every week. They better be grateful whether they like the flavours or not 😁

Gaslighting Now there's a word that's seemingly lost its proper meaning. It is not 'gaslighting' to take a photo of your child in an item of clothing, whether they ever wear it again or not. If you sent the photo with a message saying 'Look - Emily wears the lovely cardigan you made her all the time. We love it!', that still wouldn't be gaslighting. It would just be lying.

Hope the knitter doesn’t see this thread…

Haven't read tft but Debbie Bliss patterns are lovely.

They're not what I would put mine in either and I'm a knitter too. I'd happily knit something someone asked for so I knew they'd like it rather than insisting in my own preferences taste wise. I'm not sure what else you can do if they won't.

Wow my taste must be up my ass because I really quite like these! But Yanbu if its not to your taste or it’s becoming too much.
Despite being lovely, knitted items are never going to get much use anyway because they are so weather dependent and don’t stretch like some fabrics to get more use. And kids grow so fast anyway. So I think you can get away with wearing them once even if it’s just for a photo. Then donate.

The little pink Aran (cable) sweater is very sweet, does depend if your child will wear jumpers or not though as some find them too warm. The others would be useful to wrap up in when playing, not my choice of style/colour but not offensive really.
An elderly neighbour knitted my firstborn a white hooded jacket, it seemed to grow with him and it still fitted him at about 2 years old. Then my second son wore it and now, over 30 years later, both of them have daughters who have worn it too. Seems so special that it reminds sons of an old lady they knew, departed many years ago.
Likewise, when granddaughters sleep over, they use a cot bed sized blanket knitted by my mother and a single bed sized cover crocheted by my grandmother

Put the child in the outfit, take a photo, send it to the knitter with lots of appreciation, add knitting to secret stash that goes up in the loft. Been there!

Absolutely! It's the opposite of gaslighting if anything. Gaslighting is all about interfering with someone's sense of what is real, in a sense that makes them feel like their reality is undermined. It's done out of spite and to mess with people. This is being done to make the relative happy!

I’ve seen much worse believe me! But I appreciate that they are not to your taste. SIL received a crocheted set from her auntie. It was a pair of cuffed bottoms, a hat and a matinee coat (a jacket/cardigan type affair.) SIL took a photo of him in it and he looked like he was wearing head to toe lace doilies. This was about 19 years ago. She swore she would use it to blackmail him if he stepped out of line as a teenager🤣 She sent a thank you card, then the outfit went to charity. Someone else may have loved it I guess. I have knitted loads of baby stuff. Nothing spectacular, mostly plain with cute buttons, maybe the odd bit of cabling or whatever. I only made them for other people’s babies when asked and always checked re colours/shapes/sizes. A few people asked me to make the next size up when their baby grew out of a cardigan or jumper because they liked them so much. I don’t really do requests in general though because it’s very time consuming with bigger projects. For babies though, happy to knit or crochet as they’re so wee and you get almost instant satisfaction😅

Ok maybe I was wrong to say that. I'll just say disingenuous instead then. It's not kind, it's fibbing. If you did that to me I'd be mortified.

We had a similar situation with an expert knitter friend.
I made one of her gifts - a hat for my baby gd - into a tea cosy. It was always a talking point when I had friends over for afternoon tea!

It's always an awkward one. I hate the waste of gifts I don't like. But realistically I can't tell everyone who buys me an unwelcome gift!

all those people saying, take a photo and then get rid are not helping
this sends the message that OP just LOVES what has been received and so guess what, the relative will make more

I would say buy a pattern AND the yarn to make it in- as people have said, nice, quality yarn is expensive hence why the relative doesn't use it
you can get advice in a knitting shop
Bonus if you have a particular reason for requesting a garment-
child loves this colour/motif
needs -say - a red cardie to go over a red dress or whatever

The word "random" does not mean the same as the word "garish"! In fact I'm not even sure that the word random means precisely what you think it means.🙂

I am a fairly basic knitter. I do it for my mental health and to stop me doom scrolling. I pass my creations on with messages explaining this and saying I’m not offended if they don’t like it and just want to pass it on.

Surely if they are not getting worn, then the person would get the hint eventually?

We had a knitting family member who did a lot at first, but after catching on that they weren't really used, gave up.

In our case it was actually nothing to do with the style or quality. Just that we live in a hotter country than the UK, and thick knit wear isn't very useful for kids here...