Happy new year!
Unsurprisingly, 2020 flew by with no entries and no progress on this project. Once the reality of the pandemic and its implications and imperatives set in, I was seized with the urge to knit small projects from my stash and send them to friends. So, I made several pairs of Svartifoss Mittens, which are fabulous for using up sock yarn remainders and odds and ends of worsted, and a few hats and scarves. I had visions of using up all of the stray balls of worsted in my possession, but didn't quite get that far before I shifted focus and started working on finger-gauge colorwork projects, also sticking solely to stash yarn. I made an Ebba and an Oa, which I love. I also made a deliciously soft and warm version of Katie's Kep, the Shetland Wool Week pattern, in hand-dyed and -spun Shetland wool. I was lucky to reserve a kit from Shetland Handspun in time. It was such a treat to knit and is an absolute comfort to wear. I haven't posted it on Ravelry yet because it has spent most of the winter on my head.
And then, when summer really arrived, I didn't finish a thing for months. I cast on several projects and they all just languished. Understandable, really. Knitting just had to take a backseat to everything happening in our lives and in the country at large. Most of the time, I find knitting a very therapeutic activity, but this summer and fall it felt like planning, starting, and completing a project was just more than I could to take on.
I could feel my motivation creeping back in late fall, when I decided that I wanted to knit something for each member of my immediate family for Christmas. I ripped out a half-completed scarf that wasn't inspiring me anymore and repurposed the lovely Quince Piper into a Doyle shawl for my mom. I grabbed some fun sock yarn (the always satisfying Regia Pairfect and a surprisingly bright ball of Berroco Sox) for socks for my dad and brother. Finally, I had a fun fling with Fair Isle gloves, making a pair of Bosie Gloves of myself and a pair of Tveir Gloves for my sister-in-law. I had always assumed the fingers would be a fiddly pain to knit, but I really enjoyed making both of these pairs. They are wonderful to wear, too; I just love seeing all that color on my hands on a gray winter day.
At some point among all of this fall productivity, my mother-in-law cleared out some of her knitting stash and dropped off some pattern books for me to look at and pass along to other knitters. In the pile was this volume of Ladies' Home Journal Needle & Craft from Spring/Summer 1978.
It's a very strange issue, full of knits and crafts themed around Ancient Egyptian art and artifacts, no doubt due to the blockbuster exhibition of King Tut's treasures traveling the US at the time (further reading on the exhibition and its impact here at the NEH). King Tut's pop cultural predominance worked its way into pretty much everything in the issue, from a lotus-flower-themed wedding dress (which really looks more like a nightgown to me) to an ultrasuede bikini adorned with embroidered motifs.
But, tucked in at the back of the issue were a couple of sweaters that seemed to be off-theme. They looked like ordinary garments that, with their bulky yarn and generous gauge, could be easily knit by knitters of all experience levels. I didn't really think much of them...
Then I read the caption: Ice cream colors ravish the eye in two easy knits. Del Feldman's delicious butterfly jacket has detachable sleeves that double as legwarmers! In Reynold's lush wool "Lopi" yarn.
And there it was: SLEEVES THAT DOUBLE AS LEGWARMERS. How could I resist?! So, this is my 1970s sweater. For the first time in this project, I've been able to source the actual yarn called for in the pattern. With Lopi at three stitches per inch, I expect this to be a pretty quick knit.
I was fascinated to learn a little more about the designer, Del Pitt Feldman. She passed away in January 2020 and her obituary in the New York Times is so rich in detail and surprising facts. I had no idea about her impact before this. She was quite a revolutionary designer who pushed crochet in new directions with her studio/shop in New York, which was open from 1965 into the 1980s and which boasted clients like Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Cher, and Andy Warhol. Obviously, based on the sweater above, she was incredibly inventive in knitting, too. I've never seen another sweater like this one.
