“Would you knit me another one?”
THUNK went my gut when Mom asked me that. She had just tried on the Myrle cardigan I’d knit for her and the fit was too tight. Fortunately, we were on the phone, so my body language was probably not as nonchalant as my voice.
“What bothers you about the fit,” I asked.
“Let me send it back so you can wear it.”
According to my project post, I cast on this sweater on August 1, 2019. Ah, yes, I took it with me on our 2019 sailing vacation. Too much concentration and dark yarn in the cabin at night meant I worked on other projects.
Autumn 2019 was full of local government campaigning, so there wasn’t much time to knit. Turns out, this wasn’t a great traveling project in the early months, too. In December, I pulled it all back and started over.
By February 2020, as I neared the finish line, I discovered that I placed the armholes incorrectly. Rip back, add a repeat and go for it again.
March 2020 began a time of interior updating and downsizing as we decided to move. It wasn’t until September that my evening knitting returned to the Myrtle. Mom was so patient. “I’ll be happy whenever I get it.”
Myrtle is a lace cardigan knit in fingering weight yarn in one piece from the bottom up. Its main lace panels were repeats of 19 stitches over 16 rows, with the motifs leaning left or right to mirror each other. You can read my notes on how I mapped out the pattern in my Ravelry project.
I made several modifications to the sweater that Mom did like:
- Lengthened body by one repeat before binding off for underarms.
- Chose a jewel neckline instead of a scoop neckline, which required three more repeats before binding off.
- Worked stockinette for the underams instead of the mesh pattern. This created narrower upper arm circumference, which I hadn’t remembered to consider.
We couldn’t find the perfect buttons, so I made Dorset buttons using crewel embroidery wool. Mom loved the buttons, so I’ll do that again.
Yes, you heard it. I’ll do just about anything for my Mom. It makes sense to profit from my muscle memory and lessons learned while it’s still fresh.
So this long-term effort was a good practice run?
Mom went to her LYS and ordered the same yarn again. She sent me the pdf. I’ll copy and paste the pertinent sections of the pattern so I’m not flipping back and forth as I did the first time.
It’s a lot of knitting, but winter is still long. Cheers to good evenings and cups of tea.
What should we do with the lovely lace sweater she doesn’t want? Me wearing it would require gargantuan mental reframing. Let me use that effort elsewhere. I’m not quite at the point where I can just drop it off at the consignment shop…. your ideas, please!
Wow…that it is a deep commitment of love to knit something that involved twice. Maybe you could donate the sweater to be raffled for a charity that is meaningful to you?
That’s a good idea, Carolyn. There are definitely great organizations who might accept this as part of their next fundraiser. I love the sweater I got at the Common Cod auction a couple of years ago. I do love my mom!