A Tale of Two Sweaters

Sweater #1

It's the season of declining light now.  The days are growing shorter, the nights longer and colder.  Fall is making a last bright show before winter begins to close in.  The mind turns to musing and memories in such a season.  And the good people at my favorite knitting magazine ever (Interweave Knits) are running a blog contest!  Therefore, this is a fine time to tell the story of my first real knitting project(s).  They are two separate sweaters.  Separate, but linked by a strand of twisted and tangled yarn that, nonetheless, led me to joy.

Sweater number one was my very first sweater, and my first real knitting project.  I began it because I had tired of my dishcloths, and wanted something challenging, something that would mean I was a "real" knitter.  I flipped through an issue of Creative Knitting, and found what I was looking for: a simple sweater with bands of eyelets repeated at intervals.  That sweater taught me much: my first yarn-overs, my first three-needle bind-off, my first pick-up-and-knit.  It also taught me that rolled hems are, perhaps, not the best thing for a curvaceous woman!  It also helped me maintain my sanity during one of the hardest periods in my life: the long three weeks when my beloved maternal grandmother was dying.  I worked on it during the stressful days when all I was capable of was knitting, when I flinched every time the phone rang.  I seized on it and knit the day of her funeral (after the funeral, when I was home again), as though I were drowning and the sweater was the life-saving rope.  When my recently-widowed (widowered?  Is that a word?) grandfather agreed to heart surgery a few months later, I worked on that sweater in the backseat of the car as we drove to him, knitting my fingers sore so I could have the shoulders done to show him, as I'd promised I would.  I did my first three-needle bind-off in the waiting room of that hospital.  And I did, indeed, finish the shoulders like I had promised.

I finished that sweater, and was proud of it.  However, I only wore it once.  The grief and strain I had endured making the sweater was spun into its very fabric.  It was impossible for me to wear it, or even see the brand and colorway of the yarn I had used for it on store shelves, without feeling like I was going to throw up.  It's folded up and put away now.  I don't ever want to wear it myself, but I can't bear to give it away or unravel it.  Maybe someday I'll figure out what to do with it.  As it is, though, it's a memorial of my grandmother, and a tangible testimony to the power of knitting to pull one through the darkest hours.

Sweater #2

Now, on to the much happier story of sweater #2!  I tried seven more sweaters after making that one, but all of them turned out seriously wrong somehow.  Most of them turned back into balls of yarn.  One yarn snarled so badly, as I tried to rip back the sweater, that I just stuffed the whole knotted mess into a plastic bag and forgot about it.  This is the story of my ninth sweater, the first one I ever made that was a success.

This story begins in the summer of 2011.  My then-boyfriend had proposed to me that May, and my mother and sister and I had just returned from a trip to San Diego, California.  With the wonderful new turns my life had taken, I was finally ready to try sweaters again.  I decided to use stash yarn, from one of my failed sweater attempts, and chose Doreen L. Marquart's Mock Turtle with a Twist (Worsted-Weight Version) pattern, from her Saturday Sweaters book.  I altered the pattern a bit, using seed-stitch for the bottom, cuffs, and neckband, instead of ribbing, and changing the neck to one inch of seed stitch instead of the mock turtle.  I was bored with ribbing at the time, having overdosed on ribbed socks, and I have always had a deep dislike for turtlenecks and mock-turtlenecks.


The day I began that sweater was a very special one for me.  I began it the day I chose my wedding ring and put it on layaway.  I was determined to start it that day, for a special reason.  The first sweater had been made during a time of great stress and sorrow, and that had seemed to carry over into every sweater I'd made after it.  My life had become stagnant.  Choosing a wedding ring was an action of joy, of hope, of change.  It was a symbol of the more joyful future that awaited me.  I wanted this sweater to reflect that joy and change.  I also wanted it done to wear on the visit I planned to make to my fiance that November.  I worked hard on it, and...it was a success!  It fitted, it looked fine, and I did finish it in time.  I love it, and am very proud of it, even though I made the sleeves a size bigger than they were supposed to be.  When I finish the red sweater I'm making now, and the holiday gifts, I'll probably rip back the sleeves and make them the right size.

So concludes the tale of two sweaters.  I do have some tips for beginning sweater-knitters, though.  First: be very careful what yarn you choose!  I would advise either a solid-colored yarn, or a heather one, or a flecked one, not anything that has the potential to stripe, flash, or pool.  Believe me, the stripes, flashes, and pools will be certain to emphasize the part of you that you least want emphasized!  Also, be patient and keep trying.  If a sweater is kicking your backside, by all means, take a break.  Knit socks, knit dishcloths, knit small undemanding projects for a while.  But do keep trying on your sweater.  It took me nine attempts, but I did, finally, make a successful sweater.  And, for the most useful tip I can think of: check your sizes.  Make a copy of the pattern, and highlight or mark the numbers for the size you're making throughout. That tip has been repeated often, but it's one that should be repeated.

If I should win, I would like these items in my prize pack:

1- Knitting on the Road: Sock Pattens for the Traveling Knitter (item #1048)
2- Folk Socks: The History and Techniques of Handknitted Footwear Updated Edition (item #11KN06)
3- Around the World in Knitted Socks: 26 Inspired Designs (item #10KN08)
4- Poems of Color: Knitting in the Bohus Tradition (item #662)
5- Interweave Knits Winter 2011 (item #K1112)