Thursday, October 25, 2012

Artifacts From My Knitting History

I've known N. since university - which was a long, long time ago.

Her son was born in 1997. I was just getting serious as a knitter at that point, and I was starting to experiment with design. I started a habit that has continued to this day: I used to buy very plain and basic garment patterns and personalize them with my own touches. When N's son was born, I was going through a colourwork phase.

N and I had lunch last week, and she proudly showed me one of the sweaters I knitted for her son. We borrowed a baby to model it.  (That's one of the many great thing about yarn shops, there are often babies around.)

Cute eh?

The sweater isn't bad, either.


It remember the yarn - it's a DK superwash wool. The left sleeve is purple with spots to match the right front, and the back is worked in four quadrants, one in each of the four colors of the sweater.  I, naturally, inspected the work. The knitting is pretty good, but my seaming has improved greatly since then.

I love that N. has kept the sweater all this time. It's nice to see how my work has evolved.

I don't have many of my early pieces; I'm a bit of a perfectionist, and I judged my own work harshly. I knew that it wasn't good, and I just didn't keep it. I wish I had - it's gratifying to see my own progress. And, frankly, I'd like to be able to show off my first few pairs of socks to reassure new sock knitters that everyone has to start someone.


1 comment:

Bonnie said...

I kept and still use my first washcloth. It has giant holes. It has haphazard decreasing because I kept forgetting to do it. (This is significant because it is knit diagonally, starting at a corner. Decreasing is important.) When I showed it to my mom while still on the needles, she paused and then said, "Let's learn to bind off and then start again."