Friday, January 22, 2010

6th grade sweater

Once of our local customers, Janet B., has been custom knitting for her grandson, Caleb, for years. When I say custom, I mean "custom".

She makes him a sweater each year, and lets him do all the designing. He picks out the style, the colors, the pattern, everything. Caleb may just have a future in design! Each year we are awed at what he comes up with, and equally amazed that Janet reproduces his sketches with such incredible skill.

This was the sketch Caleb gave Janet for his "6th Grade Sweater."

Janet was a little worried about recreating those zigs and zags. A friend gave her some advice, and told her to just do the body of the sweater in pattern and work the sleeves plain. But Caleb's design did not include plain sleeves, so Janet knew that wouldn't fly.

She and Caleb came into the shop late this summer to look for yarn for the sweater. He had his drawing with him, and he knew exactly what he wanted. I talked with Caleb about the design. He was very specific about the stripes, and how wide he wanted them to be. He also knew exactly how wide the white separating stripe should be.

I talked with Janet and gave her some ideas on how to graph this out so it would work. She took all of this information home with her, along with a basic sweater pattern, and three colors of Berroco Vintage (approved by Caleb, of course!) She put the design into a graph format, and look what she came up with!

Wow, Caleb! We love your sweater. What an awesome design. We can't wait to see what you come up with next year! (And Janet... GREAT job!)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

WOW!!!!! Kudos to all of you on an amazing sweater!! That is awesome - how rewarding!

Linda said...

Wow, she's a wonderful knitter and an awesome grandmother

Anonymous said...

WOW! What a gorgeous sweater. And a dedicated grandmother! Maybe they should think of selling his designs and her skills!

animlgrl said...

Wow, that is really cool! And what a great way to share your love of knitting with a grandchild..and a boy no less!

Dana said...

What an inspirational post. I'm happy you post about your customers knitting projects, and this post is especially inspiring. It's a real feel good story, and has such a happy ending. And it seems to repeat year after year. Wonderful job to both grandmother and grandson. Thanks again.