Unraveled

It's been almost a year (!) since I've posted here, and I have no idea if anyone will read this, but oh well.

My divorce is still not done, but there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

In January, I started attending DivorceCare, a divorce support group. Best thing I could have done for myself!

DivorceCare (DC) meets on Thursday evenings, so I usually go straight from the train. That means I'm usually one of the first people there, but if I attempted to stop at home, I'd never make it on time. Since I'm so early, especially the first weeks when I knew nobody, I would pull out my knitting.

I worked a bit on Wicked, another week I had a pair of socks that I was trying to finish for Valentine's Day, and a Palindrome scarf that looks gorgeous, but is very unforgiving of dropped stitches, and is therefore taking much longer to complete than any scarf should.

Anyway, one of the men in the group started making small talk with me about my knitting. Apparently, his wife is/was a knitter (was his wife, is a knitter) and had started a sweater for him over 2 years ago and never finished it. Could I take a look at it for him??

Gulp. Sure, I can look at it. I've only made one sweater, but I do love to knit, and if you're patient with me, I'll see if it's something I can finish for you...

It was a top-down raglan (in the round so no seaming!) that wasn't even to the end of the raglans. I knit a few rounds to get gauge, and of course, my knitting is much tighter than his wife's. Also, he's lost a bit of weight and become much more fit since she started, so the sweater "as is" looks like it would fit a man much larger!

He gave me the vote of confidence, and the bag of yarn! I found a sweater "formula" for a top-down raglan and he gave me all his measurements. After I determined my gauge, I got out the ball winder and unraveled what his wife started.

Wow. So symbolic! That sweater had come to symbolize the demise of their marriage--he chose and bought the yarn for her to knit his sweater, she started it but never made any progress toward finishing. They had many arguments about respect, and the sweater came to embody her complete rejection of him.

Hopefully, by unravelling and starting over, his new sweater will (eventually) make him feel cared for and respected by all of his DC friends, not just the knitter.