Once upon a time, when I was a younger woman, I knitted my boyfriend a scarf. It was to match his cool long overcoat from prestigious designer Thomas I Punkt aka OMEN – those of you who have been to their flagship store on Gänsemarkt in Hamburg will probably know what I’m talking about. The scarf was almost 2 m long, made with 3 mm needles and thin black merino yarn. The one-by-one pattern was definitely a Zen exercise (knit, purl, knit, purl …….). But that was OK, because my boyfriend loved it.
Then, I got pregnant, got married, and, as most other pregnant ladies, started doing that weird thing called nesting. One symptom of this was the impulse to knit my new husband a brioche sweater. Now G is a very tall man, and he likes his clothing loose rather than tight. I knew before I even started that sweater was going to be a BIG project. But being pregnant also means you get time off, you don’t go out at night that much anymore, and you do your fair share of waiting in a variety of practitioners‘ offices. How better to use that time but for doing crafts ;-)?
So, I bought about a ton of the yarn I had used for the scarf, got out the needles, and went for it. I had decided on raglan sleeves, and after a few trials and errors, I got the raglan in synch with that brioche stitch pattern. I was a bit proud of myself. And I managed to keep the project secret too, because my husband was working out of town at the time. Yarn over, slip stitch, knit 2 together, yarn over, slip stitch, knit 2 together … again, a meditative rhythm that, once you get your fingers to do their muscle memory thing, you’re good! I remember watching a lot of Ally McBeal reruns while working on that project, and regularly giving myself a kink in the neck from knitting while on the phone with my best friend who happened to also be pregnant at the time.
The sweater made progress as my belly grew, and I finished the back, the front and one sleeve. I was doing well timing-wise, too. My husband’s birthday is end of December, and I had only half of one sleeve to go when the sh… hit the fan. What happened was a symptom those of you who have had babies may be familiar with – it usually happens in the third trimester, and it’s called edema. It makes you look like a water-logged corpse, and it’s highly uncomfortable as well as unattractive. My fingers were that swollen that I had to take off my newly acquired wedding band because it physically hurt wearing it. I had one pair of trusty, well worn New Balance sneakers that my feet would still fit into, and that was it for shoes. (Millenials: Crocs weren’t around then.)
Anyway, on top of being such a pain in the butt, the edema effectively put a stop to my knitting – that close to finishing the beautiful thing I was making – it was sooo frustrating. Just to be thorough, I wrote down how I had done those sleeves, I even drew a diagram with stitches counted and everything. I was going to have my baby and then finish that darn sweater, or so I thought.
Then that giving-birth-near-death experience happened, and I was in bad shape for a few months. When my body was finally my own again, after I had lost the excess weight which actually mostly consisted of water, and the fog surrounding my sleep-deprived, blood-drained brain began to lift, I made a pair of baby socks. With 2,5 mm needles and a very fine yarn. Yay! My fingers were working again. Then I made a baby hat, and a few other things I don’t remember.
Finally, I took a good long look at my notes, and sat there staring at my 3 quarters finished sweater. I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t remember a thing, and I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do. I was at a complete loss. I tried something. It looked wrong. I ripped it back up. I tried again. And failed. And after a while, I decided I’d give it a rest and try some other time. Maybe once I’m sleeping through the night again, I thought.
Fast forward to 2015. What can I say? This is how it’s been ever since. I would look at the work, try to make sense of my notes, and give up again. And then, last Christmas, I was suddenly done with that. My son and I started ripping up that whole beautiful brioche knit. I’ll admit it hurt. But it was also liberating. I did take a picture to prove I’m not making this stuff up ;-).
In the end, we had a heap of neatly wound up balls of black, thin merino yarn. It looked a bit dusty after 13 years, and it also was a bit curly. But it had potential, and I gave my husband the promise to make him a new sweater – not brioche, but something entirely different, and equally gorgeous.
It’s the first time I’ve ever worked with used yarn, and it’s a bit odd to think it has been hiding in a drawer for so many years. But that’s what millions of knitters over thousands of years used to do, right? It’s only our generation of thank God over 60 years of no war on our soil that isn’t used to that kind of saving-every-little snippet-pilgrim-mothers thing anymore.
But let me show you what the New Sweater will look like.
It’s a simple diagonal rib of knit 3, purl 3 and repeat, moving the pattern one stitch sideways each row as you go. I was a bit bored with it at first, but now the first piece is finished, I quite like it. You do need to pay attention, but it’s definitely doable, and I’m enjoying the work. I’m going for a cut not unlike the OMEN sweaters my husband likes, loose and square with a wide neckline. Fingers crossed I’ll get to finish it this time around. At least it’s not like I’ll get pregnant again. I had my son 13 years ago at 34, you guys do the math …
Thank you for taking this walk down memory lane with me. It sure feels like closure to have written it all up here. In fact, it feels really good. So, what about you? Do you have any skeletons like this one in your closets? Let’s hear about them!
A Stitch is a stitch 