The story of the birthday sweaters

Today is my brother's 50th birthday, so I must tell you a story.

Once upon a time, when I was young and carefree and childless, my eldest sister turned 50. I was then spending my days lounging by a pool in Santa Barbara, waiting for a work permit, so I thought this was a fine excuse to make her a sweater, which I did. I think it was a blue wool/acrylic blend, and lacy vertical panels.

It was too small, and she had to send it back to me and I unseamed it and made new side panels, and might have done something with the sleeves but I forget, and sent it back to her.

A few years pass, and my next sister turns 50. However, at this point I was not carefree, but having my first baby! I started well in advance by making something so gigantic that it had to be totally ripped out, and then, finally, late, I made a vest, with some great Norah Gaughan diamond cables. I figured if it fit me, it would fit her, but didn't take into account my nursing-mom voluptuosity, and it was still too big.

Then, in my family there is a big gap before the next 50th birthday. But, if one looks around, one will find a sister-in-law to fill the gap. So I made her a sweater a few years ago. This one I actually have a picture of!

I designed all the stranded work (she lives in Victoria and so there are sea-things, mountains, trees, her house....) and knit like crazy (she was silly enough to be born around Christmas!) and was doing fine, till I went to sew the sleeves in and found that I had knit them both on, apparently, huge needles. Not the usual mistake of continuing on small needles after the ribbing... These sleeves were completely different gauge from the body, and had to be totally ripped and reknit. Grr. Anyways, this did ultimately work out, though I believe she said something like, "It fits fine, especially if I just lost 5 pounds..." It wasn't supposed to be so "body-skimming" but you know, one's gauge changes with stranded work!

That still left me several years before my brother's birthday. I had been on a quest (which, as a matter of fact, I am still on) to find a nice brown yarn that didn't look like mud after a while. I was buying lots of Lett-Lopi, thinking to mix browns and other colours in some artful way in a sweater for me. Then, my brother took this picture and I wondered how I could make a knitted version. A postcard of the Nova Scotia coast (he was living in Newfoundland, but what the heck: browns, greens, blues, greys...) and I was all set.

I started in England. I knew my timetable -- lots and lots of time. All went well till I got to the yoke, where I figured I'd put the clothesline of icicles. But, the yarn was already doubled and quite dense, and stranding doubled icicle-coloured yarn around would have made it incredibly lumpy. And, how does one make short, not totally regular, icicles look like icicles and not just little badly formed rectangles? It was not to be. He might recognise them, but no one else would, and the result would be an in-joke and a lumpy, funny looking sweater.

Now, if we can just avoid the size problem... It's long on me, which is good.

I loved making this sweater; the knitting was completely mindless, which left lots of interest in picking the colours and trying to work my way up to the sky on the yoke. The yarn was lovely to work with, really -- if only it hadn't made us all sneeze!

I have many many part balls of Lett-Lopi left, which will also make us sneeze. Some of them have already been dealt with. (I'd never looked at that colour card before; I think I used about 15 or 16 of the colours, along with a couple of full balls of Kureyon and a zillion scraps.)

With this year, my leisurely approach to 50th-birthday sweaters is over. In the next 6 years I have 2 SILs, a husband, yet another sister and myself! And then.... I think I'll wait till people start turning 100! Ohmygosh, my dad's almost 90!

Added later: My brother writes: Thanks for the lovely sweater, which fits as if it had been made for me.

Well, thank goodness for that!