Wednesday, October 13, 2010

My first sweater

I've been thinking a lot lately about the first sweater I ever knit, which I think may also have been my first project, because I don't remember doing anything but those Knitting Nancy tubes beforehand (though surely there were some horrible swatches in there somewhere.)

Yesterday I went looking and it turns out I still have the magazine I got it from!

I even remember where I got it - for some reason it was the only convenience store selling a wide selection of magazines and though it was a long walk to get there, I went back several times trying to decide whether I could really afford it on my teen-job wages.


That's it, the one on the right, though as I recall I spent a lot of time dreaming over the one on the left, too. Especially that ribbon in the model's hair!

My finished sweater was big and fluffy, knit in pink acrylic such that I looked as though I had been rolled in cotton candy, and I loved it and wore it every single day it wasn't too hot to do that.

Isn't it funny - every time I see references to Brioche stitch I think, whoa, that looks like too much hard work (which is ridiculous given the number of Aran sweaters I've made, but still.) And now that I've looked through this magazine again I can see that I did a whole sweater of brioche right out of the gate, had I but known.

What was your first sweater? Do you even remember now?



In very much related news, I'm still clinging to the now-remote possibility of finishing my current sweater in time for Saturday supper. Here's pretty much what the sleeves look like so far:


(I'm alternating yarns for both for a bit because I am pretty sure I don't have enough of the original dye lot to finish, and I figure blending is the better way to go.)

Yeah, I know, I'm toast. But it turns out I do have one advantage: super short arms. I had to spend a lot of knitting time yesterday measuring and re-measuring my arms to see how long the sleeves should really be and figuring out how to space the increases, but I'm saving a lot of rows in the process.

And now if you'll excuse me...

6 comments:

heklica said...

Nice topic to reminisce about :) My first sweater was made in the late 80's, gray and full of cables and seed stitch (or is that moss stitch for you?) and it had moderately wide bat-like sleeves (not sure what you call that in English), as befitting the fashion :) When I got sick of it, my Mum inherited it and she wore it stubbornly until fairly recently when she finally asked me to frog it and make something else out of it.

Kathleen Taylor said...

I just wrote a long comment- but there was a server error. Did it disappear?

Mary Keenan said...

Yes Kathi, and now I'm dying to know what you said!

How funny that Heklica and I started knitting around the same time... talk about some long-wearing yarn! I doubt my acrylic would have survived well enough to be remade (and in fact, it could never have been frogged with all the halo it had going on.)

Karen said...

Oh, I remember vividly: it was 1976. The yarn was blue variegated acrylic, and it was a very complex Aran pattern with bobbles and braids and latticework, and I adored it while I was making it. When I put it together, however, I suddenly realized: this is quite possibly the ugliest sweater I've ever seen in my life. Rather than frog it, though, I thoughtfully gave it to my grandmother, who adored everything I did. A cruel trick, in hindsight.

Kathleen Taylor said...

here I go again: the first thing I ever knit from a pattern was a sock. I was 8 and I didn't know that they were supposed to be too difficult for me. Knitting in the round just felt logical (still does). The first sweater I made from a pattern was a Barbie sweater. I made many for myself and my sisters. I don't think I knitted a person sized sweater until I made a pair for my boys when they were small. I have a picture of them wearing them somewhere. I'll have to search it out. I didn't knit a sweater for myself until the last few years, but I knit many for others.

Anonymous said...

My first sweater was just a few years ago (although only got its own blog post this week), but it wasn't for me. In classic instant gratification mode, I made a toddler-sized sweater. Finally I am about to make one for myself.