I don’t like TV commercials. At all. They are a waste of time. I don’t buy any of it. Literally. I am a crap consumer. A minimalist. I am getting dangerously close to what we used to call a “goat woollen sock” person. After trying to ignore the Jumbo commercials (which I secretly sort of enjoy not because I like this particular supermarket, but because ever since Ferry Bouman I have such a crush on Frank Lammers) for a few weeks eventually I watch it. One thing stands out: a blue and pink striped woolly jumper that looks hand knitted.
A few days later I see two girls on vintage folding bikes. They also seem to be wearing hand knitted jumpers. After this I see them everywhere, in movies and on TV hosts. I even ask a friend abroad if she has spotted a similar trend there. She hasn’t.
There are brands and designers that have stuck with me for as long as I can remember, because of their knitwear. Missoni, Sonia Rykiel, de Castelbaljac are still magical to me. But however intricate and exciting, machine made knitwear for me doesn’t measure up against hand knitted.
I have two favourite pieces that I have been wearing for years. Not designer clothes. Just simple handmade cardigans I got from a second-hand shop for ONE EURO each. The first one is like a grandpa sweater. It has wood buttons. One is missing. My dog ate it when he was a puppy.
The second one is like a little woolly story. It reminds me of one of my favourite Carrie outfits from SATC.
I can actually knit quite well, yet I don’t have a single hand knitted piece by my own hand in my wardrobe. This is something that needs to be remedied. It is the only useful thing and the only fond memory that I have of my paternal grandmother. Otherwise callous and cold hearted, for some reason she mustered the patience required to teach me how to knit (thank God I am a quick study). I was hooked from the start. I continued knitting all the way through high school. I even got paid by a friend to knit her something. It was a short and boxy jumper with wide sleeves in a dusty pink mohair which these days you could easily slot into an ACNE STUDIOS collection.
(LOEWE Photo by Stephane Cardinale - Corbis/Getty Images via British Vogue)
When Googling I spotted a few celebrities wearing hand knitted jumpers. Not made by them, or by their grandmother. But by LOEWE. They are gorgeous but the prices are a tad insane, so a good incentive to take up knitting.
I wanted to include advice, like check out your local charity shops. Mum was dropping off stuff at ours. I went with to check out the craft corner. It was a sad affair. Where a decade ago you would have been tripping over stacks of craft magazines, there were now just a handful. There was one box of knitting needles. The wool section was nothing more but a few bags of acrylic for a hefty price. It also became clear that many Hooked customers either miscalculated and bought too many materials, or ditched a few projects here and there. There was enough to weave into a medium sized carpet (yes I know Hooked is meant for crochet and not weaving, but I love Romanian rag rugs…so that is where my mind went…).
Acrylic makes me sad, especially when it comes to hand crafted things. Why waste your precious time and skills on such a horrible material? If you knit two hours a day it would take you several weeks to finish a jumper, based on your speed and skill. That is a bit of an investment, even if you do get so much more out of it than the tangible final result (I find knitting very meditative, because if the counting and repetitive movements).
When I started spending more time in Romania I noticed how charities get inundated with hand knitted goods. Blankets, toys, scarves, hats, socks, jumpers, they were all brought in by the tonnes. There must be a secret army of knitting grannies out there somewhere to facilitate that. Then the hand-knitted items started showing up at local craft markets. The styles and patters were lovely sometimes, but again all was made from acrylic. To me that is even more insane than the price of a hand knitted LOEWE jumper: Romania is burning all the wool…. A local and natural resource is being wasted, while a basically plastic yarn has snuck into all the knitting baskets.
I went through all the rails of clothes at the second hand shop too. I did not find a single hand knitted item. I also did not find a single item made from 100% wool. Well, not in the knitwear section. There was a rather disturbing amount of dirndl going on, especially in winter dresses and coats. Those are made from stunning wool. You can’t knit with it, but it is worth repurposing somehow. (Leave the sweaty tatty leatherhosen be… they looked beyond saving.)
So where are the kids, and all the TV stylists, getting their hand knitted jumpers from?
I looked online too, but only found kid sized items. I guess they are no longer being shipped to Romania…
I fully intend to knit again. I actually know how to knit socks but I am not sure if I will be using goat wool.