Maybe eight years ago?–I’m guessing here–Vogue Knitting sent me a please-subscribe come-on. I debated, wondered where they’d bought my address from, and then, always curious for new knitting ideas, sure, so, I did.
The first issue that came had nothing that interested me whatsoever, except one sweater: they had a Blast from the Past section, where they said they would be bringing back one classic design from much earlier editions of the magazine, starting with that one. Clearly they were going for the baby boomer nostalgia factor; they had originally published this pattern in 1969. It looked reeeeally familiar, it took me a few minutes to figure out why, it being in a different color on a different model, and then…
…My mom had owned the original copy! I’d made that sweater in high school in the mid-70’s!
My sweater was a miracle, really; I’d known nothing of gauge swatches, or if Mom had warned me to make one, I’d ignored her totally. I’m sure the weight of the yarn I’d bought bore little resemblance to the one called for; I’d just gotten what I liked that happened to be white like the one in the pattern. I winged it with the arrogance of youth that could see no reason why it wouldn’t work. And somehow it did!
It needed three zippers sewn in, however, and for that part I ran to Mom for help. I remember my good Mormon mom going and buying tea at the local Safeway to dye them when we couldn’t find the right color separating zipper for the front; my wondering if anybody saw her at it (buying tea! The horror! And yes, that’s very funny to me now: the self-consciousness of teenagers.) I remember watching the zipper tapes turning a soft beige in the little red enamel pot on the stove. She was as fascinated as I was at watching water bubbles that afternoon.
Mom told me that creating the actual pockets for the inside of the sweater and attaching them to the zipper tapes, however, was my problem. Which is why to this day you can unzip those pockets and find a whole lot of nothin’ goin’ on there.
That sweater was kind of my backup jacket in college. I haven’t worn it in ages, although it still fits; I’ve spared my sweet hubby the “does this make my butt look big” question, because it does, so, into the closet for you. (You know, though, I could dye it denim blue, and then it wouldn’t… Now, there’s a thought!) The zipper at the top needs a bit of resewing, and those silly pockets… It definitely needs a good cleaning. But there are no moth holes, and it’ll never really go out of style.
Which is something I like, but is a distinctly un-Vogue characteristic. I let the subscription go after that.