The Ugly Sweater

I have never been one to give up yarn easily or think of any fiber as unequivocally ugly or unusable, so when I received this yarn last year for Christmas I knew it was headed straight for the stash that goes under the bed, never to be seen from again... until Lucas discovered the two skeins of Plymouth Encore. 

He declared they looked like the strawberry oatmeal he eats every morning for breakfast and could I please, please, pretty please use it to knit him a vest for Spring.  First of all, this yarn is 75% acrylic.  {usually, a deal breaker}  Second, I despise machine made dye jobs with their symmetrical repeats and shallow color palate.  However, when Luke looks at me with those adoring five year old eyes, all my knitting logic goes out the window.

My first reaction was that this yarn was going to be a bit {girly}, so I tried to {man it up} a little with a handsome brown stitch pattern.  To my dismay, Luke stated quite matter~of~fact, "That's not my sweater."


I explained to Luke my reservations, but he assured me that it would be better without the brown and could I please start his sweater now.  

Fast forward a week...  I finished the body and arm hole shaping, but decided I needed to try it on him before I grafted the shoulder seams together.  I slid it on his over his head and can you possibly imagine what came next...  "Mom, I'm not wearing this.  It looks like a girl's party dress!"   {This is where I kept my mommy cool and refrained from screaming "I TOLD YOU SO" in his face}

Furiously, I tore out the arm hole shaping, and finished it off with feminine cap sleeves and two vintage  buttons. 




After all the drama subsided, I planned to donate the sweater to our local Woman's Shelter, in hopes that it would lighten the heart of a little girl. However, on the morning I was going to deliver it, I found Cole wearing it over his pajamas.  He said he got scared in the night and the sweater smelled like me, so could he keep it and wear it to bed every night.  {sigh}  The Ugly Sweater stays.


3 comments

  1. I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!! Kids are absolutely hold your breath infuriating and squeeze the stuffing out of them wonderful all at the same time! What a great story and how wonderful that that "ugly little sweater" comforted him in the middle of the night <3

    ReplyDelete
  2. It really is the sweet little moments that make everything worth while:)

    ReplyDelete