This is the first sweater I ever knit (in Pingouin no. 55—from 1985?—and yes, I still have the pattern book. There are classics in there, I tell you).
I'm guessing that the family photo below, in which I am modeling the sweater and my prized Wayfarers, is from 1987 or 1988. I wore the sweater to pieces—long past the time it should have been retired, but I'm sentimentally attached. Recently I wondered whether I could recycle it into a cardigan by felting it and cutting up the front. So I painstakingly darned the moth holes and resewed some weak seams and then felted it (with scraps of the original, 25-year-old yarn).
But goshdarnit, the fundamentally boxy shape and massive batwing sleeves hadn't changed. It wasn't magically transformed into a better-looking garment by a fuzzier texture and some shrinkage. So it got tossed on my pile of WIPs, to be dealt with later.
This summer has been unreasonably cold, and little chihuahua bodies lose heat quickly in the cold. We have three chihuahuas but had just one dog sweater, and I can't knit that fast. Last weekend I had a brainstorm and realized how I could repurpose my pullover.
I cut off a sleeve, cut holes for legs and leash, and finished the raw edges. It's not elegant, but it's keeping Lucy warm on walks until I can knit her a sweater of her very own. Ethel will get the other sleeve. Maybe Tina can have a pillow made out of the body.
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