And it always will be

Hello Fiber Friends! With the recent completion of my "Knitting is for Lovers" sweater, I wanted to take a moment to share with you a little bit of the story behind the sweater and then share the details of how it came together in the even that you would like to take a stab at trying it yourself!

Before I begin, I feel it important to share what this sweater has come to mean to me in recent months.

I started working on this sweater in December 2024 while spending the winter holidays with my mom in California. I had just returned to knitting about six months after my graduation from my masters degree and, having moved to the bone-chillingly cold winters of the midwest, finally had an excuse to knit sweaters with all the deliciously warm wools that would never have had a place in my California wardrobe.

While knitting has had a practical utility in my life as of late, it has also given me something I have been searching for since I decided I wanted to pursue a college education: worth, value, fulfillment, and a sense of purpose. All things I have been clawing after for the better part of the last decade, attempting to find it through my academic career. But living amongst the pressure and expectations of academia for the past ten years has left me with a radically undermined sense of identity and self worth; yet my heart raced in panic every time I thought about my life outside of the institution. What would it be like? Would I still be a valuable person if I stopped producing academic thought? How does one measure a valuable and fulfilling life without the quantifiable measures of good grades, degrees, conference talks, and published papers?

I'll spare you the sordid details of the six month period post-graduation (let's just say that the anti-depressants are working), but amongst trying to find the answers to these life-altering questions, I picked up a pair of knitting needles and began to stitch... and stitch and stitch until I found myself with no less than 10 completed projects in the span of a few months. The spark I had for fashion (my degree) that diminished after graduation began to glimmer again with each new yarn I added to my stash, and the questions that had been relentlessly chasing me down finally started to fade into the back of my mind. What I found had replaced those thoughts was a sense of worth, value, fulfillment and purpose when I have my knitting needles in hand.

Now, every time that I sense those overwhelming thoughts creeping in like a cold draft from under the back door, I reach for my knitting needles. But I found that I also started to pick them up when experiencing other feelings. Things like anger, rage, hatred, fear - most of which stem from the political upheaval of the second Trump administration. And as I worked on this sweater, the phrase "Knitting is for Lovers", which started out as something silly and fun that my brain offered up during a long drive, began to take on a new meaning.

Knitting IS for lovers.

I have thrown my anxieties and my anger into something that I truly LOVE. And what a gift it is to have a craft, a skill, an art, that can transmute something as violent as rage into purpose and connection.

What a gift it is to have something that brings me into community with others who care enough to use their time and energy to create something beautiful that also provides protection. Not only for themselves, but for others too. I am reminded of the start blanket a friend is crocheting for their daughter; or the handspun fibers another friend created and turned into a cozy headband for their partner's chilly ears; or the gloves I knitted for my husband so his hands don't get cold while he plays video games; or the purple blanket my grandmother lovingly knit for me in her ailing years.

At a time in my life and a time in the world where everything feels uncontrollable, knitting has given me a safe harbor where I can resist the hopelessness that seems to permeate the very air we breathe. To take action for myself and others. To create love.

And I will continue to pour out my love - and I will keep on knitting.

Well, thank you for giving me the chance to share my feelings on this sweater. I will admit that these feelings seemed to flow out of my hands as I was typing this as I didn't begin writing with the intention of sharing all of that, but the message felt important to share.

Now, let's get into the details on how this sweater came to be!

The Details

Yarn: K + C Essential Wool 100% Superwash Merino Fine Wool in the colors Fresh Strawberry and Ballet Slipper. (I have to admit, I don't necessarily recommend this yarn as I find it pills rather easily)

Needles: Big Twist interchangeable circular needles in 6mm and 5mm

Patterns Used: I ended up using a combination of the Step-by-Step Sweater pattern by Florence Miller and the Snowpine sweater pattern by Wool & Pine.

Techniques Used:

Intarsia in the round (more on this below)
Duplicate stitch
Corrugated ribbing

Colorwork Chart:

(Yes, it is upside down on purpose)

Construction Notes:

For the majority of this sweater, I followed the Step-by-Step sweater pattern for the stitch counts/sizing, the body, and the sleeves. Where this sweater deviates from this pattern is in the color blocking, raglan increases, and the ribbing.

When it comes to the ribbing, I simply replaced the regular ribbing with the two color corrugated ribbing to achieve the candy striping effect, using the single collar option instead of the double collar/folded collar.

Once you are satisfied with the length of neckline, this is where the Snowpine pattern comes in! This pattern will teach you how to make it possible to use intarsia "in the round". In essence, you will knit the sweater back and forth rather than in the round, but each time you come to your beginning of round marker, you will knit together your last stitch with a yarn over that you add at the beginning of your round in order to connect the start and end of your rows. It might sound a little confusing, but watch the tutorial videos in the pattern and you'll pick it up in no time!

Switch to the Snowpine sweater in order to do the color changes and the raglan increases. After you have completed your raglan increases and are ready to split for the sleeves, return to the Step-by-Step pattern for the rest of the sweater. However, you will continue to use the intarsia 'in the round' technique for the rest of the sweater. I recommend keeping your 'yarn over, knit together' along the side/back of your sweater where it will create a 'seam' that is a little more visible since the stitches will be bigger.

As you knit the body, you will be using (at least) three balls of yarn in order to switch back and forth between the pink and the red using intarsia in the center front and center back. This is because while one colorblock is worked continuously, if you choose to put your seam in the middle of a colorblock, you will be working with two different balls of the same color. If you aren't a fan of this, you could ignore the Snowpine pattern suggestion of having your 'yarn over, knit together' along the raglan increase and instead use it down the center back seam.

For the colorwork, you have an option to also create the heart using intarsia which is what I did, but I think it would be simpler to forgo that and use duplicate stitch for the heart. Additionally, you can leave out the heart entirely if you'd like!

Once you have decided the placement of your letters and have knit enough body for it to fit, go ahead and use duplicate stitch and the colorwork chart to get started! I have included a tutorial, and I recommend getting in some practice before diving into the sweater itself if you've never used duplicate stitch. It can be a little tricky to get to lay correctly (though I found a little bit of steam blocking did the trick too!)

And that's everything!

If you have any questions please let me know and I'll do my best to explain and clarify what I did, though to be honest, I did make most of it up as I went along!

I can't wait to see what you make! Happy knitting!