The Cursed Sweater
- Colleen McCubbin
- Mar 31
- 2 min read
Living proof that you should NOT knit a sweater for a boyfriend.
Originally posted on Substack, March 26, 2025
B and I met in at Regent College in Vancouver, where the damp cold is real. He taught me how to deal with the cold by relaxing rather than resisting it.
B was kind of skinny. I guess I thought he could use some warming up, so ambitiously I bought a several skeins of navy yarn and a pattern and started knitting. I think I got halfway up one sleeve. After we broke up, he moved to Taiwan. He wouldn’t have needed a sweater there anyway.
I picked up the needles and yarn for the next boyfriend, S — also a Regent College find. Did I start the midsection for him? I think so. Well, about halfway up, somewhere around the waist, we broke up. He had moved to Texas and wouldn’t have needed a sweater there anyway.
The next guy was sort of a rebound after S. Sort of. Maybe not. At any rate, I had a bit of money from a graduation gift, so bought an air courier ticket for super cheap, and flew to Hong Kong to visit my friend Crystal. Her roommate introduced me to K, who took me on exactly three dates. They felt like interviews. “Did I get the job?” I asked Crystal and her roommate. Yes, I did. K and I entered a long-distance relationship.
(I discovered the following year that this was his strategy: give a girl three chances before deciding whether to continue. I passed. Lucky me.)
Speaking of threes, maybe the third time would be a charm? I returned from Hong Kong, moved to Saskatchewan, and picked up the sweater to stitch the long, cold winter in my new home.
For Christmas, K sent me a package with a nice winter hat in it. Not knitted by anyone. Probably a better size for that stage of our relationship than my crazy big sweater project. [1]
The following summer, I went to visit K in Hong Kong, and he and his dad shared a small apartment as their office. I stayed in the third bedroom, and things went so poorly that I felt like Rapunzel on the 15th floor. We were both kind of relieved when I left after six weeks. I’m not sure when we decided not to continue at all.
And the sweater? It was still unfinished — halfway up the sleeves and the body. Well, K lived in Hong Kong and didn’t need a sweater anyway.
It was time. It was time to get rid of the sweater. I put it in a garage sale — free for someone else to unravel.
[1] I learned after the third fateful relationship that there’s folklore around knitting sweaters for significant others.
“Since knitters knit their love into every stitch, it has been advised to match the knitted gift to the stage in the relationship, beginning with small items such as hats, scarves, mittens, and socks before graduating to more complex sweaters.
“Some knitters even choose to wait until marriage before making a sweater for a significant other while others ask their partner to sign a ‘pre-knitual agreement.’”
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