Knitting at Noon...

Recently I had the pleasure of test knitting a sample Jersey Shore sweater for designer Chris de Longpre from Knitting At KNoon Designs . I knitted the woman's sweater seen in this pattern cover. It's so kewl to see all your stitches done up in a beautiful professional photo! Chris and I have been chatting online and she tells me "our" sweater was very well received at the recent TNNA Show for yarn and knitting retailers. I use the word "our" very respectfully here in quotes. Obviously full creative credit is certainly due to Chris for her talent and design. I just feel honored to have been included in the creative process of getting it to market. I think anytime a knitter stitches something and then passes it along, either in this case or as a gift, we give a little bit of "our"selves with each and every stitch. Besides...I knitted this sweater not once, but twice, in order to get it absolutely perfect for Chris and the show. So at this point, I do feel I have earned the right use the word "our" in a limited sense when referring to Chris' sweater.

Chris designed this sweater in honor of her brother who used to love wearing comfortable sweaters while visiting the sea shores of New Jersey. Actually I told Chris that my husband Brian has a store bought sweater that looks very similar. Brian's sweater is well worn but always the first one he grabs out of the laundry. While in the process of making this sweater, I played a joke on my stitch & bitch girls. Kate from my S&B group got me the assignment to knit this sweater for Chris and gave me the directions at one of our weekly meetings. The very next week I told everyone that I had finished the assignment in record time and showed everyone Brian's old sweater. Now Chris' sweater pattern does work up rather quickly but I would had to have been knitting 24/7 in order to complete it so very fast. I had the girls amazed until Kate noticed the hole in the elbow of Brian's sweater. This made her take a closer look. She quickly realized that I was pulling a fast one on them. When I told Chris this story about Brian's favorite sweater, she hoped that her Jersey Shore pattern would be used to create more favorite sweaters for the favorite people in our lives in the days ahead!

FYI...when you see these Jersey Shore sweaters on Chris' website, I am pleased to also give credit to my friend Clara Masessa who also twice-knitted the men's sweater seen in this photo.
MY daughter Vanessa Lewis knitted the child's version of this same sweater. She got it perfect the first time she knitted it. I was going to take full credit for Vanessa being my beautiful creation but I guess I have to share SOME credit with her father ;-)