How my first sweater turned into a lifelong knitting tradition
There’s a nearly finished cardigan waiting in my closet: its next form is probably curly, writes Katri Jaalamaa, Managing Editor for our craft content.
My yarn stash isn’t very big, but there’s one recurring characteristic: many of the yarns are curly. I’ve learned there’s even a term for them: “frogged yarn.”
I started this tradition with my very first homemade sweater. With teenage determination, I knitted a lovely Icelandic sweater that turned out huge because of a sizing mistake. When I unraveled it, the yarn became a solid-color cable-knit sweater, colorwork mittens, and several other small projects. I suspect one of my little curly scraps is still from that Icelandic sweater.
From the light brown yarn, I first made a cardigan, then unraveled it into a sweater. The gray-shaded variegated yarn made a brief appearance as the start of a sweater and then became leg warmers. If I’m anything as a knitter, I’m an unraveler.
There’s a nearly finished cardigan waiting in my closet that I haven’t touched in years. It’s too bad I don’t like the design at all.
When my children were babies, I was eager to find the perfect shape for wool diaper covers and the right fit for a baby cap. I knitted, unraveled, and knitted again. In the end, those final versions turned out quite well. (My advice, if you’re making wool diaper covers: make the waist ribbing really high. You’ll likely still want to raise it as the child grows.)
Surprisingly, unraveling hasn’t bothered me much. Maybe the enjoyment of the process was more important than getting it right the first time.
At the moment, there’s a nearly finished cardigan in my closet that I haven’t touched in years. The body, worked from the bottom up, and both sleeves are already joined on circular needles, leaving only a small section at the top incomplete. It’s too bad I don’t like the design at all.
I’m not yet sure what will ultimately become of that yarn, but I do know its next form will be curly.
