Dave’s Story

The first sweater I ever made was for my Mother in-law Diane. I had no idea what I was doing. I picked a pattern on Ravelry and did what it told me to do. I chose yarn based on color, price, and how it felt at the store. At that time, I didn’t know the importance of swatching or matching yarn weight to the appropriate sized needle. Nope, I had a pattern and some fun blue yarn and I was ready to knit!!!  

From a knitting perspective, it was wonderful. From a size perspective, it was awful. It was WAY too big. Diane was sweet about it. She posed for photos and told me how much she loved it, even though it hung down past her ass. To this day, I have yet to see her wear it. I would have thought she’d have given me a pity wear at some point, but she never did. I’m sure it’s tucked away in the back of a closet somewhere, which is totally ok. After all, that sweater taught me the valuable lesson that I MUST swatch AND block before I even think about starting a sweater.  

Cut to a few Christmas’ later. I was sitting in the living room with my Father in-law, Dave, who was wearing a knitted sweater his mum had made him many many years before. It had held up well, but was sadly on its last leg. So he asked me if I could make him a new one. Now, after the Diane debacle, I wasn’t feeling too optimistic about this. But I couldn’t say “no”, so I enthusiastically said “yes,” thinking I could find something easy on Ravelry and redeem myself with this project. 

But then he got specific. He wanted a V-neck cardigan, raglan sleeve, in cop blue. I panicked. I didn’t even know what a Raglan sleeve was. I nodded my head anyway and expressed my excitement for this challenge, even though I was feeling totally intimidated to be the one chosen to replace his mum's skillful beauty that lasted 40 years.  

I began looking for patterns, mostly concerned with size. Things like button bands and mattress stitch seaming made my head spin. I decided to start with the yarn. Which brought me to Valeria. Oh sweet Valeria. The owner of a small yarn shop on the Upper East Side of New York City, she took me under her wing and offered to help me create a simple pattern from scratch. 

We sat down at her table one morning and she started writing like a madwoman. I was confused in about three minutes. She was designing sleeves and creating schematics, tossing out SSK’s like you wouldn’t believe. I was lost in her sea of K2, P3’s, but for some reason, I trusted her. So I took a deep breath, and I just started knitting. One stitch at a time. 

I’m not sure how it happened, but I suddenly began trusting myself. Following her direction, I knitted exactly what she wrote. I completed five separate pieces, steamed them, and sewed them together. I then picked up a button band and attached some super cute buttons to finish it off. And viola, a masterpiece was born!!! And guess what...it fit him perfectly. To a T. It is amazing!!!

Seeing it on him was quite magical. The rich blue texture came alive as it wrapped around his body, and he lit up in a genuine and honest way. My confidence went through the roof. I decided I was a master sweater maker and that there was nothing I couldn’t whip up. But my head may have been a bit too big. My next project didn’t turn out quite as well as I’d hoped….