Dad’s Jumper (a true story)
Today is Father’s Day here in Australia, where Dads are eating breakfast in bed and doing family stuff. An enjoyable day for many, and a reflective day for others.
Father’s Day was never a big thing in our family. According to my dad, Father’s Day is a bad idea – fathers should be celebrated everyday!
Dad’s Jumper is an article I wrote about my own father. It was originally published in Yarn magazine #15 in 2009.
Dad’s Jumper
Back in the late 1960s, before I was born, my newly married mother decided to knit my dad a jumper, as a token of her love for him.
She selected some 12ply Slalom by Villawool in burnt orange from (the sadly now closed) John Martin’s department store, or “Johnnies” as it was known. Slalom was a pure wool ski jumper yarn, and knitted up quickly. A friend of Mum’s had just done a jumper in it with excellent results.
Unfortunately, the jumper didn’t turn out right – the sizing was all wrong or something, so Mum undid it and handed it over to her mother to re-knit.
Grandma, a Knitting Powerhouse, quickly whipped it up into a standard classic V-necked men’s jumper.
Bad news again: this time the jumper was all over too big, but Grandma took it back, undid it, and knitted it up once more.
Well, Dad wore it for many years. Eventually it became part of his “around the house” ensemble, and finally it became a “gardening and woodwork” jumper. Fortunately it was never worn as a painting jumper, the lowest rung on the handyman’s clothing ladder. Potential painting jumpers had to have holes in the elbows to qualify.
It was still in everyday use when Dad died suddenly in 2002. When Mum was clearing out his clothes, I was lurking nearby and nabbed it.
I undid it and washed the wool. By now it was more like a 10ply rather than a 12ply, and had acquired a beautiful subtle variegation caused by the outside of the stitches being exposed to sunlight.
Grandma, now in her 80’s and still a Knitting Powerhouse, knitted me a single button, rolled edge cardigan from a Vogue knitting pattern. She marvelled at how good the wool still was, and recalled with pleasure the first two times she knitted with it.
8 months pregnant and the cardigan still fits (sort of).
I wear my cardigan often, naturally I think about Dad, and I enjoy thinking about every stitch flowing lovingly and thriftily four times through knitting fingers before it reached me.
Postscript: I still have this cardigan over 20 years later. I’ve worn it so much, and now try to ration wearing it so it doesn’t wear out!
What a wonderful father’s day story.
Thanks Helen 🙂
What a lovely story. It is impossible to find wool of the same quality today. I don’t know why, considering how much wool is produced in Australia.
I can attest this wool is really great. The cardigan has gotten thinner in the time I’ve had it, but has never needed mending (unlike other handknits I own, which wear out at the wrists) and still feels good.
Beautiful story, and a treasure to still be able to wear such a meaningful garment
Thanks Linda. You have said it right: home made clothes have an extra layer of meaning and value that is absent from shop clothes.
What a great story. And that is obviously some quality wool.
Thanks Victoria. The wool is now nearly 60 years old!
Still great story….I was never a great knitter, but send bales of knitting wool to my mother who send back amazing jumpers in all sizes for her 4 grandchildren. Wednesday was the day I washed jumpers! Thanks Liz, Mumx
She was quite a powerhouse! She continued to knit me amazing jumpers all my life, which are all still worn.
What a wonderful story, & a lovely sweater.
Plus the epic moniker, The Knitting Powerhouse!
Thanks Laurinda. She sure was – I think she knitted for over 80 years. She could knit without looking.
Thanks Liz. What a wonderful story. Talk about zero waste and family ties!
I wonder if that Vogue sweater pattern is still around?
Yes, I looked it up. It’s in Vogue Knitting magazine Winter 2003/2004, project #20. It has pockets but Grandma ran out of wool for mine.
Ah, thanks.
It still looks fantastic!
Thank you; agree!
Loving hands, hard working parents (both sets) and beautiful memories all in one garment.
Many thanks Lesley 🙂
That is such an inspiring story! Do wear your cardigan. You can always mend it, should it wear out! It has way too much positive memories to be saved for special occasions!
I actually own a pullover that my mum knitted for my dad sometime in the nineties. It is extremely warm and, therefore, was rarely worn by my dad. I „borrowed“ it when I was pregnant in 2009, kept it and then inherited it when my dad passed away. The arms of the pullover were way too short. Fortunately, my mum did still have some of the original wool (after 20+ years!), which I used to add some length to the arms. The pullover is now a firm favourite on very cold winter days.
Thanks Judith for sharing your lovely story and memories. And thanks for the nudge to wear it more 🙂
How sweet
Cheers Georgina 🙂
That is wonderful!
I was very pleased (understatement…) a couple of years ago when my parents produced a load of my stuff that had been packed away by a third party back in the early 1990s… I had assumed it had all been thrown out so was really delighted to find the jumper Gran had knitted for me, just the year before she died in her late 80s. I wash it very rarely (hang it up inside-out, away from direct sunlight, to air every time I take it off), and love wearing it and thinking of how amused Gran would be to know that a decade after she died I used her old 1920s Weldon’s booklet and her steel DPNs to teach myself to knit, my first project being a pair of knee-high shaped men’s stockings with a turnover, from the same pattern she used for knitting my dad’s socks when he was a schoolboy during and after the War, and the same pattern that, 4 years ago, I used to knit him footless stockings which he absolutely lives in, often with his trousers tucked in stylishly (!)- he says they keep his bony old shins cosy better than anything else- and I love the fact he is now in his mid-80s, and that same knitting pattern has gone through his whole life, from his schoolboy socks in wartime, to teaching me to knit in my thirties, to keeping his bony shins warm in his mid-80s…!
Thanks for sharing this great story, Laura. Craft is a really wonderful legacy to leave 🙂
What a charming story: I’m still wearing a jumper knitted by my Mum, and it’s a lovely feeling. On a recent sisters event, I reknitted downward, the lower arms of a 5 ply Bluebelle crepe carry my younger sister knitted 50 years ago while she was at school! Despite 5 international moves, she still had the 2 balls of leftover wool ( amazing !!!) and the cardy still gets lots of wears! So yes: quality wool lasts!
That is amazing she still had the wool after 50 years and 5 moves! I’m starting to think that it’s not unreasonable for a garment to last 100 years if it’s looked after properly and made from quality materials.
Thank you, Liz, for your lovely story. My mum and dad only wore wool – some handknitted but later usually from Marks & Spencer – but it has become so hard to find ready made items in the shops here (London) which aren’t mixed fibres. Or very expensive.
I can still close my eyes and ‘feel’ my mum’s cardi’s. ♥️
I LOVE your emails arriving!
Thank you for reading, Gill. Your parents sound like they dressed similarly to mine. Actually, Mum and I were discussing this lately, and concluded that (in spite of being surrounded by sheep here) it’s almost impossible to get high quality warm 100% wool jumpers unless you knitted them yourself.