Janeva's First Sweater - Flashbacks

Last weekend I was going through old photos and came across some photos of Janeva and the very first sweater I ever knitted for her.

Of course it comes with a story.

Soon after the holidays back in 1998, I decided to try my hand at knitting again. Knitting something for Janeva made sense since she was the smallest person in the house at the time. So I bought a pattern and some yarn from a LYS and got re-introduced to knitting.

Of course I had to pick a Cable Knit sweater to start with. I picked a color that I just knew would look great on Janeva so I didn't have any worries about the color.

I plugged away and knitted on this sweater each night after work. Janeva would sit next to me on the couch and watch me intently and asked me questions.....she was 4, so she asked me questions about questions at that age!

I told her that I was knitting her something and she was even more interested. But as the sweater progressed, just a normal wave of stress hit our household. Thinking that knitting was a great stress buster I just continued on.

As with any knitting project, I was getting more and more excited as the sweater took shape. By the time I had sewn the sweater together and picked up the stitches around the neck I could hardly contain myself.

I finished the sweater at the end of February and was tickled to hear the weather reports of some particularly cold weather coming our way. FANTASTIC!!! I was going to finish the sweater and Janeva would beable to wear it just in time! I casted off the neck and sewed in the ends. Moment of truth. I told Janeva to get ready to try on her new sweater and with delight she came running over. I was HORRIFIED to discover that that somewhere around the time I was knitting the armholes, my gauge changed and I had started knitting tighter. So tight in fact, the neck of the sweater would not go past her forehead! BUT THE STITCHES LOOKED GREAT!!!

With great determination I was not going to let this sweater get the best of me. I ripped the entire sweater out, steamed the yarn, rolled it back into 10 neat little balls and started over.

I finally finished the sweater in JULY. No weather reports of cooler weather in the forecast. I still presented the sweater to Janeva.



Janeva delighted in telling me how proud of me she was was excited to model it for camera.



After the photo shoot Janeva gave me a big hug and a kiss, then handed the sweater back to me and said "This color is YUCKY!".

This was the only day I could get her to wear this sweater. Yet I still love this child very much.