Ok, I’m on the brink of casting on my first sweater for my husband. Let’s recap my concerns/criteria for this project:
1. He has to love it and wear it, which means
2. it has to fit perfectly and
3. not be too hot (i.e. not 100% wool) while
4. being washable and durable. But also,
5. I have to enjoy the knitting or I’ll never finish it.
We had decided Fort would be interesting enough for me to knit but not too interesting for him to wear, and to my surprise, he even wants the elbow patches. I believe I’ve narrowed the yarn down to O-Wool Balance, which has some nice heather to it, not too far from the look of the Shelter that Fort is designed for, but is a washable merino/cotton blend. I ordered two shades of green to have a good look at (along with a hefty load of charcoal for myself) and we both love this Emerald one, which is really a sort of earthy Blue Spruce hue (not a jewel tone) that looks awesome with his blue eyes. So far so good!
But given how daunting this feels — and also because I’m thinking of using all that charcoal for my Channel Cardigan — I’m being more diligent than ever about getting to know the yarn. I knitted this big ol’ swatch so we could get a feel for the fabric and the stitch pattern. I washed it, abused it a little bit, even threw it in the dryer, which it totally shrugged off. LOVE YOU BALANCE! But as for this stitch pattern, it’s been blackballed. Bob thinks it’s too chunky looking, and I can see his point. And as much as I think it’s more interesting than stockinette as a fabric, and I do love him enough to put myself through an entire sweater’s worth of k2/p2 if his heart desired it, I can’t say I’m sorry not to be doing that. So it looks like we’re going to stick with Fort and all its other nice details, just doing it in stockinette instead of this waffle texture.
And here’s the thing I really want to mention. It turns out there are quite a few people on Instagram who are about to embark on a sweater for their husbands (all firsts, I think!), so we’re doing a knit-along. A very loose one: all that’s been declared is that we’re knitting for dudes and starting on or about May 1. I don’t think we’ve picked out a hashtag yet, but keep an eye on my @karentempler feed or @byannieclaire, who is the ring-leader on this, and we’ll make sure it’s known when we have one. [UPDATE: It’s #knittingforhimalong.] Do join in!
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p.s. I also cast on another sweater this weekend. So much for small palate cleansers! Or is that what the swatch was?