This cardigan has really surprised me. I’ll be honest with you: When we finished that whole Tag Team Sweater Project, I was thrilled to have completed the sweater and beamingly proud of the knitting, as always. But I wondered how much I’d really wear it. There was that whole dissatisfaction along the way with the dimensions being different than the sample I’d tried on and adored. It being May in CA at the time, the Shelter seemed prohibitively hot. (Hotter than the intrinsically ventilated Acer I’d just finished in the same yarn.) Plus I almost never wear color, and here was this big purple thing! It just seemed too big, too long, too bright, the neck too high — there seemed to be a tiny bit too much of it, in every regard.
Flash forward to this winter in Tennessee, and I can’t imagine life without it. I unapologetically wear it two or three times a week, and every morning when I’m getting dressed, I think, “Would it be wrong to just put on my Trillium again?” It is freakishly cozy for how light and airy it is. (Go, woolen-spun!) Not hot at all. And whereas it seemed too long and big at first, now maybe the other cardigans are just too short and small! I completely love the proportion of it. But most of all, it’s that factor I first fell in love with when I tried on the sample: It sits beautifully around my shoulders, like no other sweater I’ve ever owned. I love having it on.
It’s not the flashiest thing I’ve ever knitted. Unlike other sweaters in my closet (both hand-knit and store-bought), nobody has ever asked me if I knitted it, that I recall. It’s just such a basic, perfect wardrobe staple, that I guess nobody ever thinks to question it. Which is exactly what I love about it.
So here’s today’s Q for You: What’s the knit you wouldn’t want to be without?
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PREVIOUSLY in Q for You: How many needles/hooks do you own?