How I Knitted a School Jumper
Ahhh… It feels like only yesterday I wrapped my newborn baby in a hand-knitted blanket whilst the joke-cracking nurses in Letterkenny Hospital instructed me on bathing and feeding her. Now suddenly it was five years later. The baby and I were out shopping for her first school uniform.
Alas, one thing put a damper on the otherwise festive mood of this rite of passage. As I collected the uniform from the specialty shop that sold it, I picked up the jumper and saw words on the label that shocked me to the core: 100% ACRYLIC.
Even prior to reading the label, I knew from handling the fabric that it was made of something unsavoury and crunchy. But I thought at least it was a blend of synthetic and natural fibres. The possibility that they would produce an official school uniform jumper, meant to be worn by young children all day, in a pure acrylic, had not occurred to me.
The uniform vendor explained that it had been this way for a few years now. And that parents who wanted cotton or wool jumpers could buy them elsewhere, then bring them in to have them embroidered with the school crest. As long at the colour and the style of the jumper matched, that was fine.
What about hand-knitted jumpers, I asked? The vendor explained that in theory why not, but in practice it would be difficult to hand-knit densely enough, so that the fabric was suitable for the embroidery machine. He then let me fondle various fabrics that either were, or were not, suitable for the machine, allowing me to get a sense of how dense it would need to be.
Armed with this information, I knew what had to be done: I would need to knit in a DK weight yarn, at a fingering-weight gauge. It was not for the faint-hearted, but I was lured by the challenge.
Luckily, I already had a yarn in mind that matched my daughter’s school colour and offered the right characteristics: West Yorkshire Spinners Colour Lab DK, in shade 746. The ladies at Folklore Yarns were kind enough to rush it to me in the quantity I needed, whilst I got started measuring the original acrylic jumper.
I’ve decided not to post photos identifying the original (acrylic) jumper, because it is not my intent to criticise or mock the manufacturer. I also want to clarify, that I did not copy their design (inasmuch as it’s even possible to ‘copy’ a generic v-neck jumper). The original was a pieced and seamed construction, whereas mine would be seamless. I also changed the proportions to facilitate arm movement, as the original was somewhat bulky at the underarms. At the same time, I of course adhered to the stylistic characteristics that defined it as a school jumper: long sleeves, classic v-neck construction, and semi-dropped shoulders. I was also aiming for a polished and ‘manufactured’ look, with invisible armhole and neckline shaping (rather than the more knitterly method of working increases and decreases - if you’re not sure what I mean by this, I can elaborate in another post).
But the most important thing of all was to get the fabric density right. I determined that in order to be suitable for the embroidery machine, I would need to knit with the DK weight yarn (200m/ 100g) at a gauge of 26 stitches per 10cm for the main fabric, and at a gauge of 30 stitches per 10cm for the edgings. For me this translated to using 2.75mm and 2.00 needles, respectively.
Based on these criteria, I made the necessary calculations for my daughter’s size. The jumper then took me about 4 evenings to knit, and one additional evening to finish and block.
The next morning, I hurried to the uniform shop - and made it just in the nick of time to take my place in the embroidery queue, so that it would be done before the first day of school. When the gentleman I’d been dealing with examined my finished product, his reaction was a tad less positive than I’d hoped for: The fabric was dense enough, but only just. He would do his best for the machine to accept it.
Three nail-biting days later, I was back at the uniform shop and braced myself to accept potential defeat. Upon spotting my arrival, the vendor did not say a word, but slowly began to extract my jumper from behind the counter. And then I saw the bright yellow school crest!
It was the happiest and most accomplished I had felt about my work in some time. And that my daughter prefers the wool hand-knitted jumper over the manufactured acrylic one, is of course a delightful bonus.
To pre-empt questions about this: I do plan to turn this project into a published pattern. My idea is to offer instructions for an official Irish school jumper at the 26 stitch gauge necessary to accept school logo embroidery, as well as for a basic v-neck jumper in adult sizes at a more typical DK gauge. If this interests you, feel free to leave a comment below.
Meanwhile, we are off to finish preparing for the first day of school!