Before this month comes to a close and it goes by without another blog post, let me talk about the second sweater I’ve ever made, after Danish designer Lærke Bagger’s free pattern, the Alone Together Sweater. This was released in chunks over Instagram Stories, and is the kind of freeform pattern that really leaves so much room for lots of creative wiggle room. (I am thinking of knitting a bigger, fluffier one, and have casted on the back piece.)
I found the pattern in the comments section of a knitting group on Facebook that I joined, and it might be the best thing that happened to my knitting life, basically. Yes, all six months of it.
It didn’t take me very long to knit this up, though I am very bad at measuring things accurately, and also very bad at being patient. It ended up way more cropped than I generally like my sweaters to be. Lærke’s pattern is basically easy, breezy, and I think it echoes the attitude that you should sort of adopt while working on it. Originally conceived (or shared) as a way to use up your scrap yarn, the resulting pattern is a charming, knotty thing, full of misplaced and inspired colour combinations, and lots and lots of texture. It is so satisfying to knit up.
I’m making another one but it’s going to be fuzzy and quite plain. The best thing about the pattern is that it’s so simple structurally, and generally gives you free reign to mess up or make things up as you go along, with such a tiny margin for error. You’re basically in charge of how you want your jumper to look, and it’s up to you how long to make it, how big or small you want the cuffs and hem, what the neckline should be. Sleeves or no sleeves? That’s for you to decide!
Mine, for example, is extremely cropped, with a longer than usual hem, and! Something like a funnel neck. It’s really absurd-looking, but so much fun to wear.
It might be stupid of me to even be writing this; or just silly that I am only realising all of this now when it’s so obvious, but I think there’s always that one thing you work on — whatever the field or craft or industry — that becomes sort of your “Eureka!” moment and it was this sweater for me. It’s made me think of how to approach simple patterns I maybe would like to make.
Maybe.
But yes, such a great knitting adventure. One that I’d like to go on again. So many possibilities. My favourite time-waster for a while was going on Instagram and just looking at all the brilliant configurations everyone has come up with using the same pattern. #alonetogethersweater, if you’re curious.
Anyway, here’s something I did for Metro Manila Pride. It’s a short, possibly not super informative video (lol), but hopefully an explanation of what I love about knitting:
I’m meant to answer a couple of knitting questions on my Instagram. I’ll post something here, when those videos go up. Hopefully in the next couple of days. I really don’t know where my brain is at most of the time. I’m just this big ball of FEELING, and the FEELING is indiscernible, but always fucking there. It’s not ideal, but it’s not the worst, so I’ll 🤐
Hope everyone is okay, or as near-okay as they can be. It basically fucking sucks lately, but I hope you have small pockets of joy every once in a while.