In 2007, Knitty Magazine published Amy Swenson's lovely little cardigan "Mr Greenjeans", and I promptly made a version for myself. It was the year we moved back to Canada after 16 years in Washington, DC. It was the year Bill became a semi-retired person, although he continued doing contracts for the World Bank as well as working some adjunct professorships for a few more years. It was the year James went away to University.
At the time, the knitting universe was in a state of evolution. There were a number of digital pattern platforms popping up. There was Patternworks, started here in Canada. And the next year along came Twist Collective, also based here, under the leadership of Kate Gilbert. I got my start publishing patterns with these two, as well as Knitty.
In 2007, Ravelry was founded. It was different. It allowed designers to publish their own patterns directly, without going through submissions, editing, and the half-year long wait to finally see a pattern go live. It enabled designers to do their own photography, add links to tutorials without the constraints of hard copy magazines, do post-publishing corrections and changes, and best of all see photos of finished projects and comments from knitters.
Knowledge of Ravelry spread slowly at first through the knitting world. In 2010 at the NY Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck, I went to a Ravelry get-together wearing my little Ravelry button. There we all were in a small grassy field. Only a few years later, pretty much every one of the thousands of attendees at Rhinebeck was a Ravelry member.
The success of Ravelry naturally led to the eventual extinction of most of those earlier online platforms as the digital knitting revolution sorted itself out. But Knitty has stuck around. Last summer I browsed through some of the early issues and was reminded of how much I enjoyed knitting and wearing that old Mr Greenjeans. I decided to make a replacement using some skeins of BT's Shelter in "Snowbound" from my stash. And here it is:
Modifications: 1. Instead of yarn over raglan increases, I chose to do the more discreet "knit into the space under the thread connected to the next stitch". There's a little hole, not a great gaping buttonhole.
2. I made the sleeves wrist length. If it's cold enough to wear a sweater, you generally want your forearms covered.
3. I made four buttonholes, not just one. You can always do up just the top one. I like the way the cardigan hangs on me when it is fully closed.
4. I made this buttonhole from my tutorial on buttonholes in 2x2 rib.
Welcome back, Mr Greenjeans, and thank you, Amy Swenson. Now, I'd better post a photo of my new cardigan on Ravelry.
