The Mushroom Sweater

The plaque above is the Inspiration Piece for my first sweater. All future crafty posts will remain just as firmly rooted in junk.


I've been knitting scarves, shawls, and string bags forever, but since trig class in high school scared me off math, I've been wary of starting a sweater. Increase here! Decrease there! Check your gauge! All those little tiny k2togs and @#!&^%¿ in the pattern books look too much like sines and cosines. Just brain-hurting squiggles. Then I read Knitting in Plain English by Maggie Righetti and her story about the Mexican knitters who would clip a few fashion shots from Vogue, pull out their tape measures, and have at it — somehow that story gave me courage. I found a basic raglan sleeve cardigan pattern that lets me mess around with everything except the armholes and now I'm clicking right along. I haven't gotten to any k2togs or @#!&^%¿ yet, but my fingers do know how to make those stitches. It's just that I hate following instructions even more than I hate trigonometry. But I have such a sweet vision of the finished work that I've vowed to swallow, breathe, and do what the pattern ladies tell me to, when they tell me to do it. That orangey-red yarn, which is going to make up the edging, says "mushroom cap." Don't you think? It turns the other colors from Hunter's Camo into Hansel and Gretel. I may even embroider mushrooms onto the planned patch pockets. And it might be ready to wear by Sweater Weather. My cat Bigfoot is sleeping on it right now, so it's going have a little grey mixed in, too, for that classic heathered tweed look. It will be perfect for kicking leaves around in the woods, as long as I remember a bright orange hat during deer season.