Another Walk Down the Path of 80s Knitting Lessons

I posted last time about the nice sweater I made in the 80s that still works and has held up well to the scrutiny of time. Becca commented that she hopes hers old up in the future (no problem--she's doing way better than I did at her age and knitting stage). But, now I have to take you down yet another trip through my knitting memories, so you can see some of my more "interesting" knitting efforts and remember that most of my projects were learning experiences more than fashion projects!

The first sweater we see here was knit in my top-down sweater phase, after buying Knitting from the Top Down and becoming boggled at the possibilities. I thought, "Hey SAK (as I called myself at the time), why not knit a short-sleeved version of the top-down sweater, now that you know the formula?" And then another of my strong instincts kicked in--that endless drive to use up all my stash and any leftover yarn that happened to be lying around. People sure offered me a lot of yarn remnants. And I was a poor grad student. So I took them. Thus, I made the sweater here, which features cotton, acrylic, wool, novelty yarn, and fuzzy stuff. And for "variety" I even put some eyelets in that purple band. Perhaps this is a tad too varied? I think so. It also weighs about 4 pounds. I also wonder what compelled me to put the most itchy, hairy yarn around the edges, where it would bug me the most? I think I was under the impression that this mohair-style acrylic was "soft." Anyway, I ended up with a sweater that fit great, but was appropriate for neither winter, spring, summer nor fall. A learning experience.

Next we see something rather attractive. It's a traditionally knit Fair Isle-style sweater, inspired by my many, many 80s books on traditional patterns. It has those really cool ribbings with the color changes in them, and I even used genuine steeks at the armholes. Interesting, muted colors, aren't they? So, what is wrong with this sweater? Well, it is made of worsted weight wool. This wool, as far as I can tell, was not intended for garments. I think it was remnants from rugs or something. I got it on cones at a place called the "Yarn Barn" that used to be in Columbus, Ohio. I bought many cones for like a dollar each during my semi-annual visits there to visit our friend, Judy, who'd moved there. (She was a great cook, so we drove 5 hours to eat Thanksgiving with her for many years when I was in grad school--she was my gay office-mate Steve's ex girlfriend. Complicated it was.) She'd work the Friday after Thanksgiving, so Steve and my boyfriend and I would go to the yarn place and find "bargains" while she was at work, or go look at river confluences or Amish people in the countryside (we had a minor hobby of looking at Amish people and eating their baked goods--lots near U of I, too).

So, the issue with this sweater is that it's really nice looking, but is only appropriate for wearing outdoors while hiking or skiing in the snow. Too warm for indoors, even in Illinois. As you might predict, it has not been worn even once since I moved to Texas. But, I will never get rid of it. Too many memories!

The next item we see is a vest, which is one of the few examples of early 90s knitting you will see here (I mostly quilted and needlepointed when the kids were infants). Thankfully, it has no long stories about my old friends attached to it. It's actually a very nice vest featuring my former nemesis, the popcorn. It is made out of a very soft wool that may have some mohair in it. Nice quality stuff. The lesson I learned here is that really, I can leave patterns alone. I don't always need to "improve" them. But no, I felt like the back of this one would be too boring in plain stockinette, so I insisted on putting a pattern on it. See it behind the neckline? Yep. It has nothing to do with the front. So, it's a somewhat schizophrenic vest. I actually do wear this one sometimes. It is not too short. Good ole 90s.

Lookee here now. This little item I remember making very well in the mid or early 80s. I got the yarn when I was visiting my parents during a summer in grad school, so it was before Mom died in 1984. The yarn came from that first LYS I ever went to, in Plantation, Florida. The owner had made up this pattern, and I was so excited by the strips of gen-u-ine angora that I had to make it. Plus I thought maybe I could even wear it in Florida! What I learned here was that mitered squares are fun (way ahead of the trend on that one, wasn't I?) and that angora itches me like crazy. It reinforced the lesson from the previous outfit, too. Why did I insist on adding that little extra burst of angora, right near my face, so it could really, REALLY irritate me? I just wanted to knit with that softness a wee bit more, that's all. Another lesson learned, and learned well, was that synthetic fabrics do not breathe. That novelty yarn was HOT. And so was the really icky stuff I used on the ribbing. Ick. I did try to wear this one, but it itched, even with an undershirt under it. Oh well. It was a fun learning experience to make it.

And finally, today's parade of ancient knits ends on a happier note. This vest is made from a cotton/acrylic novelty yarn that was quite enjoyable to use. This one was another early 90s model, and I got the yarn from my friend's shop in Champaign. I think I used my last "Hand Knit by Sue Ann" label on it, too. I like this one. And I wear it a couple of times a year. At least I learned that neutral colors hold up better than ugly pastels (this is gray, even though it looks sort of blue). And I learned I really like V-necks. I have quite a collection of V-necks with cable panels, don't I?

So, there are some more lessons I learned through my knitting history. Too bad some of the nicer things I made can't be photographed (because I gave them away). I hope you learn from my experiences and go on to make your own knitting history! Show me some of YOUR past products--don't be shy!

PS: spell check isn't working on Blogger today, but I'll fix typos later. Must go rescue my Amish friendship bread. I have Amish on the brain today.

Fun with 80s Bad Knitting

Before going into what the heck all these pictures are just let me gloat gleefully that I finished the second sleeve on Lee's Maurizio sweater last night! All that is left is pocket edging, button band and sewing up! So, there's a good chance I will have an FO photo by the end of the week. He is really pleased, too. That last sleeve zoomed along with me having so much time to knit these days.

Blasts from the Past

I'd been meaning to take pictures of some of the old items languishing in my closet and a day spent waiting for an important job interview tomorrow (yay) seemed like a good time. I wanted to upload some of my old duds to Ravelry, so here they are for you to enjoy, too. Consider these real encouragement to new knitters. I'll show you why each of these projects from my early knitting years were sad failures.

The lilac cabled sweater: This is probably the "newest" item in this collection, and I'd had high hopes for it. It's made in "fancy" yarn (i.e., not from a big box store) and using a pattern I purchased. It was going beautifully until, alas, I ran out of yarn before the collar was finished. Of course the place I got it from (in the town where my parents lived--the first LYS I ever went to) had no more lilac yarn, and I had to get some purple to finish it. Because the purple didn't look too good, I ended the collar early, so it is floppy, and you see the reverse side of the stockinette. Ugh. And being a 70s sweater, it is incredibly short. My belly button is at least two inches below the edge of the bottom. Remember, late-70s and 80s pants came up really high. In the end, I bet I never wore this more than once or twice. Too bad. The sleeves look great.

Next we see something in an incredibly unflattering shade of orange sherbet. It looked even worse with my natural hair color. It's made out of crochet cotton (Knit Cro Sheen?) and mostly is crocheted. You can't really see the patterning unless you click on the picture to see it enlarged, but it is actually pretty cute and would have looked great in a less awful color. It is the color of my high school bedroom, by the way. The sweater has knitted edges on the sleeves and bottom, but because it cotton, there are also drawstrings on the sleeves. Probably this one could be wearable today if it weren't so doggone short. I could wear another color top under it.

Now we have one that does not have me in it. That's because it was apparently skin tight when I made it, and my skin is bigger than it was when I was a teen/early 20s person. I do believe this is a teen model. What's interesting about this one, other than the awful colors (why did I make so many yellow things? It's what my grandmother had lots of left over from other projects, I think) is that I made it from a 1920s pattern given to me by my grandmother. When she found a bunch of old 20s-40s knitting patterns and gave them to me, it was probably the nicest thing she ever did for me! The reason the sweater ties in the back is that it is such an old pattern. I love the cable arrangement on the edges and the neck--I'd like to do that again. This one is in baby-weight acrylic, which of course I ran out of (the story of my past) so the sleeves are that weird multicolor stuff. Later, I got a job and was able to purchase my own yarn, honest. Note that, of course, this one is also incredibly short. Apparently 20s people also wore high waisted skirts.

Now, here is an item that I actually bought enough yarn for. I was in grad school and had at least a few discretionary dollars. And I loved this lilac acrylic with puffs in it. It was so much fun to knit with. So much fun that I didn't notice until I was halfway finished that the cable band down the front was off center. Did I frog this and start again? Nope. I finished it, and I even wore it quite a bit until the puffs began to pill horribly. I really, really did not like to start over again when I was young. I am glad that I got over that, and also glad that I learned to not buy yarn because I like the color in the ball, but to consider whether the color looks good on ME and would perhaps go with anything else I own.

Well, lookee here. Another happy yellow sweater. Yep, someone gave me more baby weight yellow acrylic yarn. And once again it was not enough for the project I wanted to make. In this case, though, I was happy with the results on this top-down raglan sweater. When I ran out of yellow at the end, I finished it in the same yarn in the light blue colorway, did the collar in blue, and finally used duplicate stitch to add motifs around the edges, so it honestly looked like I'd planned the sweater to look that way. I wore this one a lot until pants got lower and it became too short. Of course, being acrylic, it has quite a bit of pilling.

What I Learned

I learned a lot of lessons when making these items. Here are some lessons:

• I wrapped my yarn the wrong way when I purled so to get nice stockinette, I untwisted my stitches. Now I only wrap the wrong way on purpose!
• Yellow, peach and lilac are not flattering colors on me even if I like them in the abstract.
• I cast on and off way too tightly. Many of these items were hard to get on. Glad I learned new ways to do this.
• Acrylic yarn does not last well unless it's high quality stuff.
• If you want to make something that lasts a long time, don't go in for trends or cheap materials.
• When I make mistakes, I now erase them. Things I thought I could "live with" like that non-centered cable pattern, actually bugged the heck out of me.
• Trusting my intuitions is important. Many of the things I don't like about these items are things I worried about when making them. I should have paid attention to my gut feelings.

I hope you enjoyed this tour of past projects. I am glad I kept at it and got better!