Sweater Curses

Quick, what thoughts enter your mind when you hear the term “sweater curse?”  

Witchcraft?  A sweater with an intarsia “#@!!” worked on the front of it?   Bill Cosby?  Me, on my couch, yelling at a difficult project?  

Or, if you know me, did it bring fearful thoughts of another knitted gift, and how it’s only a matter of time before I curse you with a sweater you’ll feel obligated to wear in public? 

The old knitting wive’s tale says that any finely knit, cabled, colorwork, freak- of-a- sweater you may knit for your boyfriend before marriage will be the beginning of the end of your relationship.  The fact that you spent hours poring over those complex stitches won’t knit you together, but, rather, doom you to being dumped. 

(more on my Ravelry and my Flickr)

I really don’t have to worry about that because I married my boyfriend a bazillion years ago, I’m knitting with easy bulky yarn, and it’s the most straightforward stockinette pattern ever.   If he doesn’t like it, it will not phase me.  Besides, though he may be picky in strange ways, I think he’s at a point in his life where he’d like a handknit sweater.  This coincides perfectly with me being at a point in my life where I think I can easily make a nice one, which coincides with me having ten extra balls of yarn in my stash.  Whoa, planets are aligning all over the place, here.

So I cast on yesterday and, in one sitting, am almost halfway through.  Granted, it was an 8 hour long hospital waiting room sitting, but still… 

I’m knitting this in a small size to factor in the way this particular yarn blooms with washing.  I’ve measured and done the math over and over to be sure.

This is from Greeting from Knit Cafe, which was one of my first really nice knitting books to own.  I have made several things from it- a baby sweater, a failed swimsuit (don’t even imagine) that became an awesome scarf, and the skirt that I will knit again in the right yarn one day.  But, really, the book would have been worth it just for my favorite sweater pattern.  

Anyway, there’s no turning back.  He’s getting a birthday/ Christmas sweater wether he likes it or not in a color I think will match his eyes and I remain unafraid of curses.  Ha, just let him try to dump me…. 

Really, you have to see the Cosby Sweater Project link.