Finn’s Green Sweater
September 26, 2008
In April, I started knitting. My friend Paul has theorized that the proliferation of new knitters has to do with the bad economy, and he may be right. But knitting is not necessarily inexpensive. Particularly if you really love yarn, because nice yarn is not cheap! And I’m told that if you end up getting really into knitting, it’s because of the yarn.
The first things I knit (a scarf and a matching red hat) were knitted in icky feeling acrylic yarn that I got at a hobby store. The next thing, a top-down raglan sweater for Finn, was knitted with cotton fleece – ahhhhh, that is nice to knit with.
It took three months to knit that sweater, but I have produced an actual article of clothing that can be worn. And here’s the thing: it looks so much better than kids’ clothes that you can buy. For one thing, I wanted a wide neckline because Finn has kind of an enormous head for a three year old (and three year olds have enormous heads in general in proportion to their bodies), And I wanted a ribbed neckline and sleeves and hem. And it’s soft. And it’s a nice color. Not a pastel baby color or an overly-enthusiastic color that screams “I’m a kid!” And it’s not striped, and it doesn’t have Winnie-the-Pooh on it.
Now, I spent all of $27 on the yarn (and I even have some left over), but if you count my time (and I’m giving Finn a cut rate of $75/hour), this is a $6027 sweater.
