Insubordiknit

The history of handspun, pt.1

Many moons ago, I learned to knit. Six moons fewer than that, I learned to spin. Mere days after that, I decided that what I really needed to do was dye some wool, spin sixteen hundred yards of 2 ply yarn, design a sweater, and knit.

If you think it was successful, you've got a bit higher opinion of me than is warranted. And by a bit higher, I mean boatloads higher.

The yarn, for my experience level, was a resounding, shout-it-from-the-rooftops success! I was so proud. Okay, so it wasn't perfectly even, but the 2 ply made it even enough. And it wasn't perfectly plied, but, well, I didn't know enough to care about that. What mostly made my voice hoarse and my fear of heights kick in (remember what kind of a success it was), was the fact that there was so much of it! I'd never even had 1600 yards of any kind of yarn before. Sixteen hundred yards, that's a big number, it's closer to 2000 than 1000, it's, it's...hell, it's the address of the white house!

So, the knitting. My plan was to knit some sort of fitted (what did I know of knitting fitted?) zippered cardi. The lighter green was for the front panels, which I wanted to have little diamonds on, remniscient of an old style quilted jacket. However, when I looked around, I couldn't find any knit/purl diamond going horizontal, only vertical, and I didn't feel up to the daunting task of switching their orientation myself. Jeez, right? The darker green was for the rest, which was all to be ribbed, because that's how I thought you knitted fitted.

Did I mention that I planned on it having saddle shoulders? And did I mention that up until this point I'd only knit one sweater, a bitty thing for LB, a tube with drop shoulders. Yeah, saddle shoulders!? I didn't really even understand the anatomy of a knitted shoulder, much less how to design and fit together my own saddle shouldered garment. Yeesh. I couldn't even figure out how to space out 16 purl stitches to make a horizontal diamond but I was gonna create my own saddle shoulder?

And so I knitted. And I beamed. So proud. This picture is really the last time my face would shine with naive pride regarding this sweater. I had such high hopes. The second it was dry and LB was in bed, I got my little darning needle out and proceeded to make my spun dreams into knitted reality.

The outcome was so ill-fitting, so sloppily constructed, so utterly heartbreaking, that I stuffed it in a bag, put it in a drawer and went on with my life. I didn't even take a picture. You know it was bad, I'm the one that took a picture of LB's first baby hangnail and there's no picture of my first knitted handspun sweater. It was bad.

So, fast forward many moons, many years, in fact, to 3 days ago. I unpacked the box that only a few months ago I stuffed that bag with that sweater in a moving box, pretending not to know what it was. And instead of hiding it away in a new, out of the way place, I took it to friday playgroup and in front of a crowd of aghast moms, I unraveled the whole thing. I washed the kinked wool, hung it to dry from the coat tree we got from an estate auction a few weeks back, and picked out a pattern.

Now granted, the yarn isn't the prettiest or the most well spun, but there's something so sweet about it, so hopeful. I'm not sure there's enough of the dark to make ariann, but I'm going to knit, and hope.

Posted by jacey at October 7, 2008 11:10 AM