The Knitter's Curse

I am not the biggest fan of stockinette, and I tend to fall in love with sweaters that have technical challenges, but I am also aware that the sweaters I actually wear are ones with not so much of the busy going on. Vitamin D is a sweater I took on not for cables or lace or colorwork, but because I recognized in its simple shape a sweater that I saw a lot of in the stores and always seemed to want to buy. I never did put down the credit card on any of them because I am possessed by the knitter's curse.

Maybe you have it too. It's when you look at a sweater in a store and say, I shouldn't buy that. I can make that instead. Here's two that ruffled my feathers lately:

What might follow is a devil's bargain of how much that store bought sweater costs versus the yarn it would take to make it. Mental stash notes consulted, maybe you already HAVE the yarn and there's the money saved right there. Or maybe the sweater is really pricey, or doesn't come in your size -- both true of the Vince sweater on the right. Maybe the back isn't as nice as the front -- that freepeople number on the left has a scary blotch of color across the back shoulders.

You might walk away, vowing (for the moment) to go home and find a pattern and make that puppy. Or you might be one store bought sweater poorer. As a knitter, either path leaves you a bit disturbed, be it with guilt of the knitting cop-out (buying the thing), or with the urgent excitement of a new project on the needles. The only cure for the curse is to actually make the sweater you saw and wear it.

Curse conquered: Voila!

Cavalcade of Ravelry links: The enormously popular Vitamin D by Heidi Kirrmaier, in Black Cherry Swoon by Mad Color. Here's my own project link.

Comments

[kmkat]

I love it! Now you have passed the knitter's curse, v. 2.0, on to me. I recently discovered that swingy tops like this one are a good choice for my body shape. How can I NOT knit this sweater...

[margaux]

I love it! I also suffer greatly from knitters curse and always see things I could make... banana republic is my biggest offender! beautiful color on you!

[garret]

That is just 100% great! I love it!!! The color is perfect for you!!

I know what you mean with the sweater "curse" (not to be confused with the real sweater curse). I have that sensation all the time. I don't like to wear things that I don't make, but parts of me don't like to wear things that I make. I knit a lot of plain stuff as a result.

[Daine]

And my husband has the man version - "woodworkers curse" - we can't just buy a piece of furniture because he could always make it more exact/better/cheaper. But never faster :)

[Carole]

I love it!

[Lynn in Tucson]

Beautiful! That color is TO DIE FOR.

[Cat]

Julia, you and your sweater look wonderful! It looks like you did really well with Spark People. I tried to follow your blog on SP when you suggested it here some time back but I was unable to do so. My success story has been with the MyNetDiary app on my iPad, although I still need to lose more.

[Jenny]

I saw a sign at a craft show once that said "Sure, you could probably make this yourself... But WOULD YOU?" I thought it was pretty clever.

[Crystal]

What a great colour for you! And yes, I totally have the knitters curse. It's horrible!

[Dana]

I definitely do that. Helps me to avoid impulse purchases (because I never say to myself, "Self, that will take you three months and good yarn will cost twice as much. Just buy the d*** sweater"). Plus, there's the knitter's pride factor; once people know you knit, then anytime you wear something knitted they will ask, "Did you make that?" and I really hate answering No. Though it cracks me up when my students ask me if I knitted something like a super-fine-gauge sweater from Target because there is no possible way a human being could do that in less than five years, working every day. :-)

That said, one of my favorite purchases was last year I got a circle-y shaped sweater from Coldwater Creek on clearance and I felt totally justified because it was a great deal and also a complex pattern (both stitches and construction) that I knew I couldn't/wouldn't/didn't want to try to recreate.

[Charlene]

Turned out great! Delicious colour too.

I once did that with an intarsia sweater from the Spiegel catalogue. I charted out an eighties-style oversized intarsia sweater at a gauge of about 24 sts, knitted the entire thing and then hated it on me when I'd finished. I'd also had to run around town to find yarns that would work together since no one brand came in enough colours. Twenty-some years later it's tied around the back-rest of my task chair where I bead, and the cat uses it to climb.

Good times.

[Kathy]

It's perfect!!

[kelli ann]

What a flat-out beautiful sweater. It has such lovely drape-- I agree with so many of these commenters, it's a fab colour too.

[June]

I'm working on that sweater, too! I'm in a stage of a work project at which I am rereading very long documents for the nth time, looking for tiny errors, so... What to do with my hands? Stockinette sweaters to the rescue!!!

Did you lengthen the sweater at all? I see the various FOs of this sweater and wonder whether I should lengthen mine, and if so,where...? I still haven't divided for sleeves and body yet, so I've got a way to go.

[julia fc]

No June, I didn't lengthen it at all, but the blocking certainly changed it. People should face their blocking fears and just do it! It only adds a day to the wait to wear a new sweater and makes such a lovely difference in the finished quality of the fabric (but I don't need to tell you that, I'm just preaching a little for the blog). If you wanted more length, given all the short rows, I would wait until just before the last batch of yarn over increases across the hemline.