yes, it is chuck in his new retro-knit. swell! it seems he is pretty happy to join these other grayscale, handknit wearing lads... who are all straight from the pages of a vintage knitting booklet (minus the friendly banter). i found this 1966 book at a thrift store several years ago. when i brought the collection of patterns home with me i knew at that time that my skills were nowhere near where they'd need to be to complete any of the projects... but i held onto it with a bit of hope that someday... someday perhaps i'd be using the "choose-o-matic" yarn selector chart on page two, choosing the perfect yarn and a pattern to make something for chuck. something classic that would look as keen now as it did then.
so in january, i felt up to the challenge of knitting a men's garment. i purchased up several skeins of nice yarn (because a big pullover needs a big supply of yarn — super swell!) and i cast on for style 9602 (ravelry link), the round neck pullover... a more practical choice than the fuzzy, mohair cardigan, tennis cardigan or dickey. i loved the simplicity of this one. the yarn, which is a wool/alpaca blend from the green mountain spinnery was incredible to work with. it was really soft, and seemed even softer when it was looped up together in the sweater. to me it worked very well with the pattern and the vintage look i was hoping for. in fact, all of this project ended up better than i was even hoping for.
truthfully i was pretty amazed when it all came together, fit and was wearable. in addition to that, it passed the weekend test of coffee drinking while gazing at the ground to see what might be popping up and dreaming about what might be planted where this spring... and that sure was nifty!