The sweater

My mother-in-law is a big-time knitter. She's knitted me a lovely black cotton crewneck sweater, many sweaters for my wife, and an extremely cute sweater for my son with a pattern of excavators (his favorite thing in the world).

My favorite sweater of hers was one that she wasn't going to finish. I'm not sure why she started it, but she got about 20% through it and decided that it was "too ugly". I told her I thought it looked fine, and she should finish it:


I wear this sweater nearly every day. It is a heavy wool sweater and I wear it on my morning hikes. I love that it keeps me warm, but it also breathes. When I wear it over two layers of fleece, it's good down to about 10º, as long as the wind's not blowing too hard.

As you can see, it's a big floppy sweater, the kind of thing that Ernest Hemingway was always photographed wearing. It probably makes me look like a big, striped whale, but I don't care because it keeps me so warm!