FALMOUTH, Maine — For those with a passion for handiwork, crocheting or knitting someone a handmade gift is one of the most intentional ways to express love.
Many crafters have multiple projects going at a time. It sometimes means that when they die, there's unfinished business left behind — in the form of half-finished scarves and sweaters, personalized quilts, or intricately-designed rugs.
Masey Kaplan of Falmouth and her friend on the West Coast, Jen Simonic, both learned how to knit at an early age. They said their friends would often ask them to finish projects that perhaps a mother or grandmother was working on and couldn't complete before they died. Both women assumed there was likely a service their friends could sign up for to get help—but they came up empty-handed.
"It was one of those things where I was like, 'It must exist in the world, right?'" Simonic said. "It just needed to be there, but it wasn't."
In the fall of 2022, Kaplan and Simonic decided to take a leap of faith and address this niche need by creating the Loose Ends project. They recruit volunteers (or "finishers") online and then encourage anyone with unfinished projects (or "holders") to request a finisher through their website.
Projects can include everything from crocheting to knitting to quilting to weaving. Kaplan and Simonic then play matchmaker, looking at factors like proximity and skill level.
"I’ve matched people who live around the corner from each other who have no idea. They’ve never met each other," Simonic said. "It’s like, 'You live in my neighborhood! Let’s go to that coffee shop on the corner and meet, and you can tell me about your loved one, so I can finish the project for you.'"
The women said so far, they have around 1,300 finishers across 20 countries. Kaplan said there are finishers in every U.S. state except for South Dakota and Hawaii.
"People are so good. People are good," Kaplan said.
One of those finishers is Eugenia Opuda of Portland. She said she found out about Loose Ends through a local newsletter and immediately wanted to volunteer.
She said she was given a project the day she signed up, finishing one of three blankets a mother was trying to crochet for her kids while going through chemotherapy before she died.
"You don’t fully know the person that you’re finishing a project for. You just know that they lost somebody, which connects us in such a human way," Opuda said.
Opuda said she's taking great care with the blanket she's knitting to leave behind the original creator's marks. She said there are some consistency differences and bumps in the knitting work, but the woman's children want those to be left behind, as a reminder that their mother once touched that fabric with compassion in mind.
"It’s incredibly moving to think about finishing a project that someone was trying to do for a person that they loved, but they passed," Opuda said.
She herself has some experience in that realm. Opuda said her mother died 10 years ago and left behind some unfinished knitting projects of her own.
"To this day, I still haven’t finished it," Opuda said. "It's not because I can’t finish it but because of the emotional element of it."
Annie Gatewood is a project holder who lives in Harpswell. A woman named Sarah worked as her finisher, completing two baby sweaters that Gatewood's mother was knitting for her future great-grandchildren. She died about a year and a half ago after completing three of the five total.
"She was knitting until about four days before she died," Gatewood said.
Gatewood said initially, it was tough sending away such precious material. When she got to meet Sarah in person, though, she realized the risk was worth it.
"I went to meet her in Portland. I saw her, and I nearly broke out into tears," Gatewood said. "She actually looks like my mom. They could be sisters."
One of those future great-grandchildren was born a year ago and got to wear one of the five sweaters. Gatewood said seeing everything come full circle resulted in a sense of peace.
"It’s one of those things where you have to just have a leap of faith. When you do take that leap of faith, you get back so much more," Gatewood said.
Kaplan and Simonic said they're currently accepting donations through GoFundMe to try to expand their mission. They said they're also looking for more project holders because finishers need pieces to complete! You can learn more here.