Do you remember your first sweater? Do you remember sweating through the small stuff, and the excitement of seeing a real garment come together in your own hands, at your own doing? I do. I had not knit many things beyond hats when Judy, the sales clerk at Sheep's Clothing in Kennewick, WA, convinced me to buy a Sirdar sweater pattern and some baby yarn to knit my little girl (who was 6 months old but is now 5) a cute little hooded cardigan.
I've always been the type to dive in and try to figure things out for myself, and that's exactly what I did. And that's exactly what the sweater looks like! The seaming is C.R.A.P., and I love it that way. In fact, looking at the seams it's hard to imagine that I could have sewn them together any worse than I did.
After Campbell had outgrown the sweater, I gifted it to my new neice Naomi (and I think it was already missing that third button when I gave it to her, too - oops). Then I entirely forgot about it, until a recent day when I was cruising Ravelry.
All of a sudden it dawned on me that I had a lost, early project to enter into "My Projects". I contacted my sister and she dug up the sweater and got it to me, and guess what? It just fits Mallory right now, which happens to be almost exactly five years after I knitted it.
It's great to remember your knitting roots. Mine may not date back too far, but they're there all the same. Most of the time it feels like I've been knitting my whole life, and re-acquainting myself with My First Sweater reminds me of how far I've come in five years.
