My First Project: Kristin's Memory Sweater
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When Kristin wanted to learn to knit, she struggled to learn from diagrams in books. So she walked into her local yarn store, Memory Hagler’s Knitting, in Birmingham, Alabama. Her motivation: hand make adorable clothing for her toddler daughter, Karen.
The owner, Memory Hagler, was seated at a table knitting and offered Kristin some advice. She told her to begin with a sweater because if she started with a scarf, she would be bored. With a teal cotton/tencel blend she began a basic sweater pattern, written by Memory to fit her specific measurements. Every time she finished the assignment that her new teacher gave her, she would return, leaving with more homework. Rectangle by rectangle, step by step, she knit her first project ever: an adult sweater.
She finished the sweater and immediately cast on a new sweater for her tiny daughter. The next lesson was intarsia, knitting a pig motif onto the front of the sweater. After finishing the sweater, she continued crafting for her daughter, knitting sweaters in cotton to accommodate the hot Alabama weather. She recently pulled out a cardigan with a cat knit into it and her daughter, now in her early 20s, modeled it. Unfortunately she got rid of her first teal pullover a couple years ago, donating it to Goodwill.
When asked to give advice for new knitters she doesn’t always follow the advice her first teacher gave her. She thinks that a sweater might not always be a great first project for everyone. She suggests trying out a Wheat scarf, released by Tin Can Knits. “Get a yarn you love”, she says, “because you have to live with that yarn for the entire project”.
It might not hurt to add a tag, offering a reward if lost or stolen, too.
