seeing things differently

Last week I went to Florida to visit my father-in-law, and we met this huge bird, who hangs out by the hotel, Beau Lido, waiting for snacks. We didn't feed him any, of course, (it's bad to feed wildlife!) but sometimes a different perspective, a bird's view of things, helps you see the same old things in a new way. Since this blog's title does imply I'll talk about knitting and spinning once in a while, here's something I recently saw differently. About nine years ago, I made this sweater. It is all handspun, and the design was something my mother helped me come up with.
As you can see, it is short and goes perfectly over the empire waist dresses I used to wear when I taught high school every day in Virginia. (this seems like eons ago, but I just got an email from a former student today, so yes, I did do this.) I never wear the sweater anymore, it's too short. I tried putting on a different colored addition on the bottom, that looked very bad. I have no more of this color fleece--I've moved three times since then and I'm sure I spun it long ago. So, with a new vision, my husband and I messed around with the sweater until we came up with this: It's not perfect, but it's more fitted and sort of funky a la Teva Durham, if you know what I mean. How does it work? Turn a garter stitch sweater inside out. This is where my family's "make the inside look like the outside" finishing obsession comes out helpful... Stitch together the button bands, tack down the edges into lapels. It fits better and is slightly more fashionable. I still don't know if it is an everyday kind of sweater, but it does make an old sweater new again.