The Four-Oh Sweater

A.k.a Chronicles of the First Homegrown Sweater.

The first sweater ever for the Significant Other, and also the first homegrown sweater, so I am going to chronicle it to death. Hopefully I will learn at least alittle bit from my mistakes.

Why?

It’s the Big Four Oh. And the man has everything, but a special sweater.

What do I want to get out of it?

I want him to wear it. And I want to want to make more of them.

The biggest risk?

I want him to be able to design as much of it as possible, to get a sweater that HE wants, not something I want him to wear. I am aware of the Boyfriend curse, yes, and I am aware of the fact that knitting for your Significant Other will probably put a strain on the relationship (especially with my goals in mind, coupled with the stubbornness in this family. Just as an example, 12 years ago when we moved into our little studio with a tub it took us a week to agree on a shower curtain. A week. We both gave up at the same time standing in the isle at K-mart for the third time. We lived with the hideous jungle and parrot shower curtain for 4 years). The strain is already evident. “Can you look through this knitting book,(Viking patterns by Elsebeth Lavold), and see if there’s anything you like?”, I ask. “Mmmhmm, just not now, I am tired/hungry/have to go for a bike ride/go to 7-11”. I will let it slide for now. Maybe I will even learn patience. Yeah, right.

How to begin?

Yarn

The most important choice. It must be a cotton/wool blend in favor of cotton, the man is a furnace. Options are Knitpicks Main Line, not sure about the colors, and they have no color wheel I can buy, and Liana from Artfibers.

Color

The requirement was a solid color yarn. Blue, green or black. Picked up some Liana at Artfibers, one skein each of blue, brown and orange (he loves orange). He picked blue, but was not thrilled about the slight varigation. We’ll see.

Pattern

Gulp. It’s intimidating, it’s nerve wrecking, but really, it’s just a damn sweater. He has requested one funky cable on the left front, on the arms, and the rest in a “tight kind of weave”. (After a show and tell of knitting stitches I figured out it means reverse stockinette). The cable request has added restrictions to the type of sweater to make. I don’t think a raglan sweater would look good with cables so I am going to either use a drop shoulder (so easy) design or saddle shoulder. The sweater will be knit up in the round, and then I’ll figure out the sleeves and chest when I get to it. The other request is a ribbing on the bottom of the sweater, so it’s tight over the hips. He also wants cables going sideways there, but I think I may make regular k2,p2 ribbing and the twisted stitches (mini-cables) every other 2k’s.

What’s next?

Finalizing the funky cable design, and try knitting a couple of swatches with the “test yarn”.

When is it due?

September 7^th. No pressure. If it’s not done in time, it isn’t done in time. We’ll be in Sweden, so which project to bring on the plane to knit will already be decided! It will be the Travelling Sweater.

~

~

Other Updates

1. 1/2" left of the ribbing on the Orangina. How come I'm not doing it now? Because I am working on a new project. Duh.
2. 1 Pomotamus sock is DONE MAN!
3. Three more mitered squares are done. It takes one day on the train roundtrip to make alittle over one square.
   
4. I love steroids. I love them. No more poison oak. It's but a memory and some dry itchy scars...