Raising the Dead for Halloween

Imagine Mambocat wearing a long black robe, lighting dozens of candles, burning incense, and waving her hands around in the air ...

"Ominay yah-yah ... ignay knitabius ... oom-lah, voodoo, acrylicus .... wooly bully, wooly bully .... beneath the light of the moon, O Ancient Sweater, I command you to appear!"

What with it being Halloween and all, I decided to regale you with a Very Old Object that has been raised from the dead.

During the course of the repair work on Mom's house in New Orleans, what to my wondering eyes should appear from the depths of a closet but the very first sweater I ever knitted for her, way back a life and a half ago.

This is a sweater I knitted in Red Heart yarn from Woolworth's when I was about fifteen ... when the Really Big Things in my life were Elton John, Led Zeppelin, bicycling all over New Orleans, knitting maniacally and finally figuring out that boys were good for something besides bombarding with water balloons from way up in a treehouse.

I probably got the pattern from one of Mom's McCall's or Good Housekeeping magazines. I was very proud of this sweater at the time because (1.) it was my very first cabled sweater -- the only other cabled thing I had ever knitted was a small couch-pillow cover in a beguiling shade of 1970s Refrigerator Orange; (2.) I had to make fitting adjustments because Mom is well-endowed (3.) it actually fit her.

Mom has worn it as a house sweater for all these years, and finally asked me if I could fix the snags.

Looking at it 31 years later -- (yikes!) -- I find myself scrutinizing everything I did not know then, amazed that I somehow produced a sweater that fit, and also amazed that Mom wore it around the house and for dog-walking and to the grocery. It is a 1970s bathrobe-type wrap sweater with a shawl collar. At one point it had a knitted belt. The belt is long gone (no doubt a dog had something to do with this), but Mom still wears it around the house and garden.

You know somebody loves you when they will wear such a thing, and, like any good Southern Mom, she had the graciousness to wear it for things like walking the dogs and going to the grocery, so I could see her wearing it frequently, and therefore felt good about having made it. This is a talent so subtle in an excellent Mom that you also don't realize until many, many years later that you never actually saw her wear it to work, or church, or a PTA meeting, or anyplace where she had to look her very best, but she nonetheless wore it often enough, in appropriate circumstances, to let you know it was (and still is) appreciated.

Looking at it now, wow ... Way too loose gauge. I had absolutely no idea how to join the raglan sleeves to the body without gaping and unintentional (though consistent) holes which appear to be yarnovers but are not. Not so bad on the picking up of stitches for the front bands and neck, but sloppy decreases, and sloppy execution of the shawl collar, and yucky joining if you turn it inside out and look at the seams. No concept of reversing the direction of the cables on either side of the center to achieve symmetry, or to make them work with the decreases. Cables are crossed way too far apart -- I seem to remember thinking that all those cable-crossings would be a real pain in the arse and I could get away with fewer cable crossings by spacing them a little further apart. Horrid joining in of new yarns. Badly hidden ends. Bleah!

But it's nonetheless a good trip down memory lane, and after all, was only 15. Therefore, it amuses me enough to share it here now, and I am so very touched that Mom wants it "fixed" even though of course she has a number of other garments, well-executed, which I have knitted for her since then. She says it has sentimental value. And besides, it's good for watering the plants, puttering around the house and rounding up her two cats.

What amazes me the most is the old Red Heart yarn from Woolworth's. This sweater has walked a lot of dogs and taken out a lot of garbage and planted a lot of rosebushes, so it's been washed about 83 gazillion times, and no doubt accidentally bleached a couple of times. But, aside from a few snags caused by bushes or puppy teeth, it has held up like ...well, like Red Heart.

Red Heart is like Michael Myers or Jason Voorhies. You just can't kill it. Amazing stuff. I mean, aside from all the inexperienced construction and stuff, it still looks ... well ... not too shabby.

Happy Halloween.

--Mambocat

P.S. -- Jigsaw was disappointed that nobody entered the costume contest, but I told her this year was just a test balloon. A little catnip and tuna helped her get over it. We'll try again next year, won't we, folks?

Don't y'all let Jigsaw down next year, you hear?