A year and half ago Anna the creative director of Myssy knitted her very first wool sweater known as Lato. The starting point was to create a minimalistic sweater for maximal daily use. She wasn’t familiar with the language of knitting and at the start the project seemed to be taking forever. A lot of mistakes were hidden inside the sweater, but the result was still perfectly good for use and in the end the sweater was ready in a month and half. It turned out that knitting made concentrating on all remote meetings so much easier and knitting in a county parlament had similar effect. She decided to knit a Lato sweater for all her kids and as the smallest sky blue sweater was ready in July, it was time to think of the next project. Yes, we can confirm that the rumors about a knitted hoodie are true!
Read Anna’s thoughts about knitting and the gateway theory of becoming a knitaholic.
Myssy’s creative director Anna finished her fifth sweater and is now wondering, how on earth did she manage in her project and became a knitaholic? And what shall she do next?
“I have knitted maybe a hundred beanies, but in the last five years I had totally lost touch to this hobby. Knitting an entire sweater seemed like a huge and complicated project, I could not even ready knitting instructions myself. In the spring 2021 the second lockdown was about to begin and I thought now or never.
The starting point was to create a sweater for use. The design, usability and technically easy knitting were the most important features. Way too often sweaters are knitted out of the joy of knitting and using patterns and colors might make the project more interesting. Knitting itself is the main point, the sweaters might not even end up in use. From my persective knitting is responsible only, if the knitwear also ends up in use. Personally I’m fond of timeless and minimalistic sweaters, nothing extra on them. Knitting from Finnsheep wool would guarantee a beautiful and interesting visual structure without anything extra.
For the first sweater I chose naturally brown wool. For the first time ever I read knitting instructions, learned a few basic techniques and wrote down notes. I made a lot of mistakes, but instead of starting from the scratch, I just tried to fix them on the go. After the sleeves were left on yarn, the rest was finished within a week. Only month and half later my very own sweater was ready. Nothing beats the feeling of mastering an entire sweater yourself. You can’t buy one. Yes there were mistakes inside the sweater, but they are just adding up character.
So the gateway theory for becoming a knitaholic ended up being through and I decided to repeat the magnificent feeling of doing it all by myself.
Four kids, four sweaters - that was my plan. All my kids got to choose a color and one by one the sweaters were finnished. The girls have been wearing their sweaters a lot and it feels great to see them in a sweater that mom has made. Also my son wears his, but only if I ask.
I get easily bored and I’m always up for new experiences. However I did not get bored of knitting the same sweater over and over again. Actually quite the opposite. Knitting made me less anxious and more present. I have been knitting through so many meetings and bet all the people in my team approve this habit. Instead of checking the phone of starting to write emails, I actually just knit, listen and think.
After finishing the smallest sweater I have been knitting Kuohu sweater for a change, but I certainly will continue with Lato. During the holidays I came up with the idea of combining two of our most successful launches: Lato sweater and Myssy hood. Lato hoodie will be the most contemporary knitwear for this autumn. I welcome you to join me for the next project, go knit yourself!
