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September 19, 2003
Blast from the Past #2
In an effort to make more frequent entries to my blog, I have photographed some of my really old knitting projects and will present them here for your entertainment over the next week or so.
Here is a sweater I knit for my husband (well, he was my boyfriend at the time, not yet my fiance even, if I recall correctly. This refutes that theory about the boyfriend sweater curse.) In the interest of full disclosure, I must reveal that this sweater was knit on a machine.
Machine knitting is faster (duh!) than hand knitting, but has several key drawbacks. First of all, you are imprisoned in whatever room the knitting machine is in, and (unless you like seeing all that hardware in the family room) you are cut off from all normal family social interactions. I suppose machine quilters and other sewing people deal with this just fine, but I feel that it's important to - if you're going to have an obsession - do it surrounded by family and friends as much as possible. Second, I find a lot of satisfaction with handling the yarn and knitting the stitches one by one, even if the progress is slow. For me, knitting is equally about process as it is about result. Finally, machine knitters have a much more limited repertoire of yarn types to choose from. However, I'm not much into the fancy and novelty yarns, so that doesn't represent too much of a drawback for me.
My husband still wears this sweater once in a while, although it has a couple of holes in it that need repair. The fit on this sweater is odd - it's too wide and too short. I can't remember if it was supposed to be that way, or if (more likely) my row/stitch gauge was off. Anyway, he has found it to be a good sweater to wear while skiing.
He deserves a new sweater! I got some yarn off eBay with full intent to make a nice new sweater for his birthday, but I'm not sure I like the yarn after all, and the pattern I started was too funky. Back to the drawing board.