The Learning Curve: Building the Armor

[Author's note: From this point forward, there will be a lot of comparison pics between the original Ty Cobb Sweater and my reproduction. Despite my best efforts, the sweaters appear to be radically different colors. This is purely an effect of the lighting, as I use LED bulbs in my home. Both sweaters are, in fact, light grey and as close a color match as I was able to come up with.]

Podcast on "Charity Crafting"

I'm always amazed at serendipitous coincidences, when things come together exactly when you need them to and in exactly the right order. In this case, shortly after my second Hall of Fame visit, I was invited to do a podcast with Knit Picks about "Charity Crafting." (Here's the iTunes link; it's Episode 252 and my segment starts at 25:45.) While the podcast focused mostly on my baseball yarn projects (See? Even then, I was tearing apart baseballs.), that interview made me realize that, since the Ty Cobb and ECL Sweaters would ultimately be donated to charities--both the Hall of Fame and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum are 501c(3)s--maybe Knit Picks would be willing to donate the yarn. At least it couldn't hurt to ask...

So I asked.

To my astonishment and delight, Knit Picks was entirely onboard, even to the point of shipping me the yarn at various points along the road trip I was then taking. (I honestly can't say enough good stuff about them and their enthusiastic involvement. Talk about a business run by good people!)

So there I was, with more pictures, more measurements, a better "feel" for the sweaters, and more than enough yarn...and I still couldn't get the stitches right; I certainly couldn't produce something with that "armor-like" weight.

A partially-unlaced baseball. Note the double-stranding.

And then I had one of those "aha!" moments. Interestingly enough, the idea came from the baseballs I had been unlacing for my baseball yarn projects. I noticed that, to strengthen them, each seam was stitched using TWO laces, not one. While the analogy wasn't perfect--I needed heavier stitches, not stronger ones--using two strands was certainly a straightforward way to mimic thicker yarn, and at the very least, I knew I needed that.

Single-strand stitches

Stitches from the original Ty Cobb Sweater

So I tried it...and miracle of miracles, I'd hit on the solution! Not only did two strands give me the correct gauge, but the stitches were wider-looking and denser. Even better, the fabric was heavy--as in armor-heavy. As far as I can tell, the reason you get heavier fabric is that you're sort of squeezing two stitches into the space normally taken up by one. I'll admit that I don't entirely understand why it works that way, but the point it that it does work, so who am I to question?

Double-strand stitches

Finally, I was in a position to start making the actual reproduction. (Yippee!) So I cast on and got to work. I quickly discovered that knitting armor is HARD. Not only are the individual stitches tighter, but the project itself quickly becomes heavy, meaning your hands and forearms get fatigued and sore. That's probably part of why I haven't been putting as much time as I should into the Ty Cobb and the ECL Sweaters. I like not having arthritis, and I'd prefer to keep it that way. :)

Fortunately, dedication (plus Advil) is now winning out, and even as I write, the second sleeve on the Ty Cobb Sweater is nearly finished. I'll put up more "in-progress pics" soon, but the next few posts will focus on construction details. They're things I find fascinating, and hopefully you will too, if only because we simply don't make clothing this way anymore. Think of it as baseball, knitting, and history, all rolled into one.