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!)