Approximately a zillion years ago, I bought the latest issue of my favorite knitting magazine Mon Tricot (this one is dated 1977) and some nice Aran yarn to entertain myself on a family road trip.
I thought that if I knitted this sweater, I might be as cute as the very cute person in the photo.
Sadly, when the sweater was finished, my expectations were not realized, and I didn’t feel even a tiny bit cute in it.
I imagine that I probably tried it on once, went, “Blech!” and never wore it again.
However, I could not quite bring myself to get rid of it, as it was not really a bad sweater.
But nor could I ever bring myself to actually wear it.
It languished in the back of a closet for many years.
Then, as I was sorting through old clothes, Becca spotted it and wanted it.
I gave it to her, but she never wore it either.
When she moved into her own digs, I found it among a heap of rejected things on her bedroom floor.
By now, I figured it was pretty icky, so I put it in the laundry basket.
It hibernated there on the bottom layer for several more years.
Then, one day when I was sorting laundry, Rachael saw it and wanted it.
In what was by now becoming a family tradition, she never wore it either.
When she moved into her own place, I found it again at the bottom of a heap of discards.
I put it back in the laundry hamper.
Finally, in a cleaning frenzy (actually the setting up of my little sewing room), I decided that I should have a normal laundry hamper which contained only clothes that were actually going to be washed, and not one filled with things I didn’t like but couldn’t quite throw away.
I had to deal with all those little trolls in the bottom of that basket.
I got out the sweater, tried it on, and liked it a lot.
I have been wearing it constantly ever since.
Go figure.
