My grandmother taught me to knit when I was 7. I have no actual recollection of the learning process, but have pieced together evidence that it happened then. It wasn't until I was 20 that knitting appealed to me, and then it quickly became the obsession that it remains today. I have wondered how much that early experience laid the tracks for this intense focus on all things yarn. I know that I greatly admired my grandmother, and over the years I have seen, and even worn, some of her beautiful work. I acquired from my dad one sweater that I liked very much: a dark red pull-over that had one cable along the side, with twisted rib edges and a wide, high neck. It was frayed around the edges when I got it, and I wore it that way for awhile. I don't know what happened to the sweater, and I had not thought of it in years (Okay, DECADES) until last month when Oogy gave me some undyed Cascade 220 to play with. Something about the yarn's heft and ply made me think of the frayed red sweater.
I dyed it with ProChem dye "cape cod cranberry". My dye pot would hold only 3 skeins, so there are 2 dye-lots that miraculously appear to be the same color.
They are not perfect--some areas around where the skeins were tied did not get saturated with the dye, so there are intermittent light spots. I have convinced myself, and have been encouraged by a few Camel Knitters, to accept these as legitimate design elements.
I'm replicating the frayed red sweater that Grandma made for Dad, updating the style just a bit.
