This is a sweater my mom knit for my dad in the 70's. I remember seeing it as a work in progress on the couch and thinking she'll never know if I knit a few stitches. This was before she taught me and I'm sure when she picked it up again it was a bit mangled. But I was confident I knew what I was doing just from watching her knit so often.
It's another sweater that I have a love/hate with; love it because she made it for dad but hate it because of the horrible yarn. The color is actually nice. It's green with specks of blue. Malabrigo has a color like this named Solis that I love perhaps because it reminds me of this sweater.
My parents were both born in the 1920's. I have to think their love affair with anything convenient stemmed from living through the depression. Acrylic was up there with frozen foods, they couldn't get enough of it. Imagine you could throw a sweater in a washing machine and not have it shrink. No moths to worry about and it was cheap! When my sisters and I would buy 100% wool my mom couldn't understand it. "You girls are so extravagant!" she would say. Or "do you really want something you have to hand wash?" while shaking her head. Although she could appreciate the finer fibers and wouldn't shy away from a cashmere twin set it was convenience that always won out.
Here's my dad on their wedding day surrounded by some of the men from my moms family. It's one of my favorite family photos because it so aptly captures their sense of humor.
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