Hearts upon my Sleeves
Congratulations! You made it to the final post about the Ireland sweater!
James Joyce, one of the Irish literary greats of the early twentieth century who primarily wrote about Dublin wrote, “A good puzzle would be to cross Dublin without passing a pub.” And this is so true! The Stag’s Head is one pub I stopped in to sit, knit, and drink for a bit. As one might imagine, the décor is primarily deer themed. Stag’s Head looked like a converted chapel because of the stained glass windows lining the walls.
Once the month was halfway over and I was not nearly halfway finished with the sweater, I decided I had to put aside my smaller projects (yes, I did find a local yarn shop about ten minutes away from UCD) and focus on the sweater. I pulled several late nights listening to knitting podcasts and watching Derry Girls.
All the previous sweaters I made either had a rounded collar–which I always had a pattern for–or a V neck collar, which is simple because you just knit two stitches together every 2 or 4 rows. I wanted to put a rounded collar on this sweater, but I had absolutely no idea how to maintain the design while also rounding the collar, so I made a square collar. But that was hideous! I tore it out with Weezer’s “Undone” playing in my head. I sort of fixed the collar by decreasing the amount of stitches in the collar, but it still looks weird to me.
Then came the sleeves! One of the plays we studied was Shakespeare’s Othello where Iago says “I will wear my heart upon my sleeve,” (I.i. 64) so of course when I saw the cabled heart motif, I wanted to include it on the sleeves of my sweater. In addition to this, the motif had a seed stitch interior which is usually in the diamond pattern on Aran jumpers. I had learned my translation lesson and knit the sleeves flat instead of in the round to prevent confusion.
One day when I had some free time I went on a little knitting adventure to find a scenic place to sit and knit for several hours. I wanted to go back to Howth, but unfortunately there was a fallen tree preventing the train from running all the way to Howth. So I contented myself with going back to Sandycove. This time it was warm and sunny and the “snotgreen sea” was a deep blue. After jumping off the 40 foot to cool off, I walked along the coast until I found a large boulder to sit and knit on. I lost all conception of time while knitting row after row. My attention was fixed on my knitting and the beautiful sea in front of me. But when I turned around and saw several inches of water covering the previously dry rocks I had walked on to get to the boulder, I figured I better wade back then instead of swimming back later.
A few days later I almost pulled an all nighter to finish the sweater in time to wear it once before leaving Ireland. The sleeves turned out nicely and are my favorite part of the sweater. While there are several aspects of the sweater that I would change such as the collar and the sort of snug fit, I am overall very proud with the way it turned out, especially since this is the first one I’ve made. I hope to go back to Ireland so that I can perfect my skills!
