Sweaters and Superstitions

It is a well known superstition among knitters that one should never knit a sweater for one's boyfriend before one has the ring. There have even been books written about it.

And yes, I already own this book. The premise is a bit silly, written for the (single) woman knitter who has recently started dating a guy. It gives a list of projects, from hats, to scarves, to washclothes to knit each month of the relationship, until surprise! he gives her a ring. It never tackles the question that if he wants a damn sweater he could bloody well learn to knit it himself.

In February, I began a long-distance relationship with a wonderful man in New Orleans.

This is Brandon. Smart, funny, insightful, Ph. D. candidate, and cute as hell. I have already told himI'm making him a scarf for Christmas, and he even chose the yarn and the colour (Madeline Tosh, Scarlet, DK). He doesn't know what the pattern is, yet (unless he's been reading the blog, and since he's so busy pining for me down in New Orleans, I doubt he has time to read this). He has also told me he wants a "wardrobe of scarves," and since I'm a pretty average yarn whore, with a stash that could bury a house, I can keep him in scarves until Hell freezes over (at which time, he'll need all the scarves I can knit). 

Last night my inamorato asked me to knit him a sweater. Being fully cognizant of the above mentioned rule, and not wanting to be single after less than a year, I carefully explained to him the superstition that Rules the Knitting Universe, and told him I'd make him a sweater after I got the ring. Hey, I may be an atheist, and I may deny karma, and I may refuse to give agency to the Universe, but there is no bloody way I'm going to go against this knitting rule. No way, no how, no sir!

That said (and this was all by text, by the way, since that is how we modern lovers communicate), I asked him what colour he'd like. Brandon looks good in jewel tones, so I was thinking emerald green, ruby red, or maybe sapphire blue. Colours I like to work with. His reply? Yellow or pink. Oh, my dear God in Heaven, I think I need to sit down (except I was already sitting down). First, yellow and pink are my two least favourite colours (well, there are others I don't much like, but I just cannot imagine knitting these). But he loves yellow and/or pink, and I love him, so channeling Christine Lavin's song Good Thing He Can't Read My Mind, I remembered the lines,

I am at the opera, 

And I do not like opera,

But he loves opera, 

And I love him.

Do not get me started on opera (that's another story for another time, let's just say that as the son of two Italian opera fans (Mum loved Puccini, Dad loved Verdi, and the house echoed with the sounds of Madama Butterfly and Aida), I am not an opera fan), but the same principle applies. If Brandon wants a yellow sweater, then Brandon shall have one. Maybe with a thin orange stripe every few inches (and that's a lot of inches, since Brandon is 6'4", and I see miles and miles of stockinette in my future).

Brandon is coming up to Boston next week for the wedding of our friends Tim and Mike. While he is here, I'll take his measurements, we'll go looking for patterns, and check out various yarns, but I have already told him, that he shouldn't expect a sweater any time soon. I will need a break from my holiday knitting, and I want to make something for myself in January. Maybe finish one of the sweaters I've got on the needles, or start that one in the oxblood red bulky wool I've got in my stash. And maybe, just maybe, he'll find a sweater next year under the Christmas tree, in bright cheery yellow, with sassy orange stripes.

And there had damn well better be a ring under that same tree.