30 Day Knitting Challenge Day 17: Have you ever had a project that you loved become ruined? What’s the story behind it?

Hoo boy; it’s been a while and I still mourn this loss, even though I made lemonade out of lemons.

In late 2005, I splurged on the yarn for my third sweater, Kristin Nichol’s Aran Pullover from the Winter 2005 issue of Interweave Knits. This was my first or second issue of Interweave (I had subscribed to Vogue Knitting around the same time) and I was super excited about this sweater – it was love at first sight. I loved it so much that I decided to splurge on the yarn, making my most expensive purchase to date: Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed. I chose color 116 Ivy: deep forest greens with flecks of red and yellow. I’d never worked with yarn so soft.

The pattern was great, the yarn was great, the finished sweater was great. This was pre-Ravelry and before I took advantage of the website that came bundled with my email service (I paid for my email so I’d have privacy, no ads, shell access, and could use Pine, a text-based email program), so I don’t have pictures of the finished sweater.

The sweater and I lived happily ever after for two years, until one fateful day when my husband decided to “help” me and do laundry. At the time, I was doing laundry for 5, including a toddler, and an 8 and 9 year old, so he really was genuinely trying to help. I had tossed the sweater into the basket with the other dirty laundry knowing that I would be the one to do the wash. But I wasn’t. And my husband didn’t realize that the sweater couldn’t go through the washer and dryer.

It was tragic.

I held onto the felted sweater for a year before deciding to repurpose it around Christmas time; I made 3 Christmas trees out of it with some vintage beads that were very sentimental (my great grandmother gave to my mother, who gave them to me) and that I’d been saving for a special project since I was a little girl. I still get a little thrill when I pull them out at Christmas; they are very special to me.