Wednesday, January 3, 2007

My husband's endless sweater

Being a superstitious person, I waited until I was safely married to knit a sweater for my man. In addition, I'm a relatively selfish crafter, usually preferring (with holiday exceptions) to make stuff for myself -- small of me, but true... Every once in a while, though, I get caught up in a surge of love and generosity, and feel Joni Mitchell's lyrics running through my head, "I want to knit you a sweater, I want to write you a love letter, I want to make you feel better, la, la la la...want to make you fee-eel fre--ee.." And out comes my heart -- affection is declared, promises are made. There was a particularly messy affair last year involving dress pants, matching plaids, two welt pockets... It didn't end well.

Sometime last summer I decided it was high time I knit a sweater for my husband. I knew it would take a while, but it was a season of long lazy days, sunshine, and beach weekends...anything seemed possible. Mr. P. is a large person at 6 and a half feet, and he doesn't like bulky knits. He chose this sweatshirt style pullover --



-- which, of course, includes some extras: a hood, and a patch pocket.

Miles of stocking stitch, and many, many episodes of Buffy, later, I am sewing up the finished pieces. This is a big occasion. I started this sweater *five months ago* and am positively thrilled to finally be putting it together.



I tried a provisional cast on for the sleeves, which I'd never done before. Hopefully it will be easy to extract the waste yarn and knit down to the perfect sleeve length after he tries it on.



Final finished photos and specs t/k.

3 comments:

Jen said...

Isn't Buffy great for boring knitting? Good idea to use a provisional cast on for sleeves--I'll have to remember that.

southern gal said...

Welcome to blogging!

Your knitting looks great! How lucky to have a MIL who crafts - its nice to share with a family member!

Looking forward to seeing the finished sweater.

Windansea said...

Hey there - just giving you a shout-out from over on Zimmermania. Congrats on starting a blog....btw, I too, am a knitting Lydia!