March of the Penguin Sweaters

On knitting a garment I hope will never be worn.

Ill-fitting

I’ve come to understand one of the primary reasons I’m passionate about knitting: As I knit, I visualize the person the garment is intended for. If it’s the holiday season, I visualize friends, family, and a flock of juvenile-service professionals who will get to choose from a knitted pile of accessories.

This is a relief after a quarter century of writing: nobody wants a draft of a bad poem in their holiday stocking—although the Man I Married might have preferred a slim sheet of paper over the seven-foot-long scarf I knitted him as my first ever knitted project.