The present my sister didn't expect to love. And why I ended up buying four.
The present my sister didn't expect to love. And why I ended up buying four.
Six reasons this quilted basket is the best present I have wrapped in years, from a woman who has given forty Christmases of bath salts and is not proud of it.
Every December I make the same promise to myself, and every December I break it. The promise is that this year I will give my sister Margaret something she will actually use and actually love. What she usually gets is bath salts. Or a candle that smells of a forest neither of us has ever visited. She thanks me, she puts it in the cupboard with last year's, and we both know.
Let me be plain about who is talking. I am Helen, I am 65, I keep a tidy house in Chester with my husband David, and Margaret is three years older than me and twice as hard to buy for. She has everything. Or rather, she has everything except the things she would never think to buy for herself.
This year I finally got it right, and it was by accident. Earlier in the year, after twenty-six years with a cracked plastic laundry basket from a garage forecourt, I bought myself a quilted fabric one with sheep on it from Lyra London, a boutique that has been quietly making ordinary things a bit lovelier for a while now. When Margaret came to stay in October she stood on my landing in front of it and said, “Oh, that's lovely. Where did you get that?” Then she said the thing that settled it: “I'd never buy myself one of those.” That is the whole secret of a good present, isn't it?
Margaret's, wrapped on the dining table. I gave up on wrapping paper halfway and used the ribbon.Here is what forty years of buying presents has taught me. Gifts come in two piles. The useful pile, which is sensible and slightly insulting (a kettle, a dressing gown, the year I bought her a draught excluder). And the lovely pile, which is pretty and goes straight in the cupboard. What you are looking for, and almost never find, is the thing that sits in both piles at once.
A basket she uses every single day, that she would never have bought herself, and that looks like it was chosen on purpose. When the boutique asked if they could put my letter up for others to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest. It comes down to six things.
1It doesn't look like a practical present
This was my worry. Nobody wants to unwrap a laundry basket on Christmas morning. But this one does not look like a laundry basket. The quilted artwork wraps all the way round, so whichever way it is facing it looks like something you would put in the sitting room or bedroom on purpose. When Margaret saw mine in October, her first words were not “oh, a basket”. They were “oh, the sheep”.
“Bought the Highland cow one for my sister's birthday and she burst out laughing with delight. It lives beside her fireplace with her throws in it now.”
2There is a design for every woman you know
This is the part that turned one present into four. Once I started looking at the collection, I could not stop matching designs to people. Sheep on green hills for Margaret, who grew up in the Dales and still talks about it. The little dachshunds in their knitted jumpers for my neighbour Pat, who has had sausage dogs for thirty years. The wise owl for my daughter Claire, who has had owls on everything since she was nine. And a big yellow sun over a meadow of wildflowers for me, because I deserved one too.
There are thirty designs in the collection—Highland cows, cats sitting on piles of books, sunsets over the hills and plenty more besides. I chose four presents in about twenty minutes sitting at the kitchen table, instead of my usual three-week December ordeal.
“Ordered the dachshunds for my daughter-in-law and the sheep for my mum. The hardest part was not keeping both for myself.”
3It stands up on its own, even empty
Not a small point. A floppy fabric basket slumps in a heap and looks sad. This one has structured quilted sides that hold their shape whether it is full of towels or holding nothing at all, so it stands there under the tree looking like a proper piece of furniture, ribbon and all.
Claire's owl, standing empty on my landing before I wrapped it. It just stands there, looking pleased with itself.“Empty or full it stands there like a piece of furniture. No slumping into a heap like the cheap ones.”
4Soft and quilted, will never crack, and wipes clean
Pretty presents usually come with a warning: handle with care. This one doesn't. Unlike plastic baskets that eventually split at the rim and snag good jumpers, this is solid quilted fabric throughout. It is soft to the touch, wipes clean with a damp cloth when something gets spilt near it, and can be washed properly when it needs it. Pat has two dogs and a husband who comes in from the garden without taking his boots off. She needed something that could cope.
“Nothing to crack or snag the good towels, and it wipes clean with a damp cloth in seconds. Beautifully made.”
5It folds flat, so it wraps and posts easily
It is lightweight and folds down completely flat, which matters more than you would think at Christmas. Folded, it wrapped like a neat parcel and went into one envelope bag for the post. And when the house is full in the week between Christmas and New Year, it slides flat under the bed or into the airing cupboard and pops straight back up afterwards.
All four, waiting to be wrapped in the spare room. David asked if we were opening a shop.“Arrived folded flat so it was a breeze to wrap for my sister in Devon, then popped straight into shape the moment she opened it.”
6Three sizes, for everything from knitting wool to blankets
There is a small, a medium and a large. The small (14 × 18 inches) is ideal for a bathroom, fireside logs, or a knitting basket. The medium (16 × 22 inches) is the everyday bedroom size. The large (20 × 28 inches) takes a whole family wash or a winter's worth of spare blankets and throws. The handles are reinforced fabric, so it carries comfortably even when full.
“Bought three with the multi-buy discount—two for presents and the small one for my knitting wool by the sofa. The prettiest useful things I own.”
This present, against the usual one
Laid out plainly, the way I wish someone had laid it out for me forty Decembers ago.
About the price
I am careful with money and I will not pretend otherwise. The small basket is £34.95 at the moment, from £114.95. The medium is £37.95 from £124.95, and the large is £41.95 from £139.95.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that they are a small shop selling directly, and they are made in runs—once a run is gone, it is gone. Their words, not mine. What tipped me from one basket into four is that they also take a bit extra off when you buy more than one (10% off two, 15% off three, and 20% off four). Margaret, Pat, Claire and I made four, which meant four presents sorted for less than I usually spend panicking in the shops in the last week before Christmas.
And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before ordering. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real people rather than robots, so I read on. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women's words.
If you have someone on your list who already has everything—or if your own laundry basket just turned up one day in 1998 and stayed—this is the one I would put in your hands myself, while the design you want is still there.
Helen
