No doubt you are all familiar with the notorious Boyfriend Sweater Curse, which dictates that any attempt to handknit your beloved a sweater will result in said other half dumping you at the exact moment you complete your woollen labour of love.
I am not generally a superstitious person by nature, and although I have no wish to incur the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing, I refuse to bow to apocryphal scare stories. So, I am knitting my boyfriend a sweater.
Now, in spite of what this may lead you to believe, I’m not an idiot. And, tempting though it is to surprise him with one of these:
Because every jumper needs a belt.
I’m hoping to avoid the curse, rather than invoke it at the first stitch, so the boyfriend and I have been discussing the sweater and trying to decide which pattern he might like.
So far we have established that he would like a proper woolly jumper which, thankfully, means I won’t be trying to knit a 44″ chest on 2.5mm needles. He has a frankly inexplicable interest in getting up at 6am to watch whatever cricket match is playing in another hemisphere before he goes to work and our living room is often chilly in the early hours. He is also going skiing at the end of February, which meant I briefly considered this:
'Dashing through the snow...'
Before regaining my senses. Also, I doubt I’ll finish it in time for his holiday, but we’ll see.
He likes cables and textured stitches, but I think this might be overdoing it:
Sleeves big enough to store a cricket bat
The pattern that seems to tick the most boxes is Devon, however, it’s knit in a chunky yarn which might be a bit heavy, and if I knit it in the suggested Peruvia Quick it would cost £100. Plus, it’s worked in pieces and seamed, which I detest.
So, I’ve ordered some lovely aran yarn from New Lanark and it looks as though Elizabeth Zimmerman will save the day with her Seamless Hybrid. I have attempted to knit one before, which was not a total disaster, but not quite right either. However this time I will have the recipient close to hand for measuring and trying-on which I think is going to help a lot. Plus there’s the added bonus that he’s a maths whizz and can help me check my pattern calculations. I’m thinking it should be pretty easy to add a simple cable to the front (maybe off-centre, up one side?) but otherwise I’m going to try to keep it relatively uncomplicated. Watch this space and wish me luck…
Have you laughed in the face of the sweater curse? Or fallen foul of it? And what’s your favourite men’s pattern?
