Sweater curse confirmed, frogging completed, self sweater underway

Mine lasted long enough to wear once before he moved out. A navy jumper in Knit Picks Wool of the Andes, took me the better part of a winter, and he put it on for one photo at his sister's birthday and never wore it again. I left it in the cupboard for almost a year because I couldn't face it, then one rainy Sunday I just got on with it and frogged the lot.

The unraveling was honestly the best part. Something about winding it back up felt like getting my weekends back. I skeined it, washed it, hung it with a weight on the bottom, and the kinks settled out fine. I held it double and made myself a big slouchy thing I actually wear constantly. My only different take is on the buttons. I chucked mine in a drawer and every time I open it I get a little reminder of that stretch of my life. Yours going onto a jumper that fits you feels like a better ending for them. Also for anyone mid-project reading this: I now keep a seprate yarn budget for partners and it comes out of a fund I call the furniture money. If it survives the relationship, lovely. If not, I've lost nothing I wasn't prepared to lose, and I still get a jumper out of it either way.

I stopped buying gift-quantity yarn for partners years ago, but I did make one exception and it taught me my lesson the cheap way. My ex asked for a scarf, not a sweater, so I only ever had three skeins of Malabrigo Rios in the Teal Feather colourway in the house when things ended. Knitting for a current partner feels fine in the moment, but the finished object outlives the relationship by years and that gap is where it goes wrong.

I still wear that scarf because it was mine before it was his idea, but I keep the harder-won rule now: nobody gets handknits with more than a weekend of work in them til they have made it through at least one full winter with me. Socks qualify at the two-month mark. My husband earned his jumper the slow way, four winters in, and it has been worn every cold season since.

Also, a tip for anyone facing a pile of frogged skeins: wind them into loose hanks rather than balls before the soak, or the centre stays kinked for weeks. I learned that one the sad way with some sock yarn and it never fully relaxed.

I'll push back on the bit about unraveling being the best part. Mine was two hours of swearing at a mohair blend that felted slightly at the seams and had to be cut, not frogged. Ended up with short broken lengths I could only use for colourwork. If a yarn pills or matts while it's knit up, test a small section before you commit to ripping the whole thing back.

I sidestepped the full frog by thinking in modules. When mine ended I had a cardigan body done in pieces, so I only unravelled the second sleeve and the fronts, kept the back panel, and reknit it as a vest for myself with a neckline I actualy like. Steeking was never on the table, it was plain stockinette, but cutting the armholes by hand felt suitably ceremonial anyway. My rule now is no seaming until at least the one year mark, because an unjoined pile of pieces can be repurposed and a finished garment can only be given away or destroyed.