My First Sweater

Here it is — my first sweater. It only took me four years — well, it really only took about a month of actual knitting — I started it a couple of times and had to pull it out a couple of times but finally, it’s done. I’m wearing it now. It’s cozy and heavy and although the sleeves are a little long, it actually fits and the proportions are right —

I’m going to do another one in this same pattern but using Becky Weed’s gorgeous wool she mills over at 13 Mile Ranch. This will be my locavore sweater — the wool was grown and processed just over north of Bozeman — I’ve written before about buying Becky’s lamb and I’ve been wanting to knit something from her yarn for a while now (but I told myself I had to finish the sweater I’d started first). I love that she converted an old barn on her place to a mill, and that she’s working so hard to develop multiple revenue streams for local sheep ranchers. Plus, the wool is gorgeous …

I think I’m going to do this one in a different stitch — seed stitch maybe? With a dark mohair trim and wooden buttons? This is one of those things like learning to sew a skirt, or make jam and pickles, that makes me feel good. I like being able to make something myself, something that doesn’t look like what everyone else is wearing, and that I can tweak so it’s exactly the way I want it. I also take great comfort in not being entirely reliant on the consumerist corporate world for basic things like feeding and clothing myself — there’s some real bottom-line security in knowing that I can take care of my basic needs, that I haven’t entirely lost those skills.