Still Not a Cool Kid

If you know anything about the internet knitting scene, you probably know that this little thing called Rhinebeck happened in upstate New York this past weekend. You know those fan conventions for Star Trek and Marvel and whatever else is cool these days? Rhinebeck is like that for fiber people—part state fair, part trade/animal show, part conference, part meet and greet for thousands of enthusiastic people in handmade sweaters. Apparently it’s quite nifty. Anyone who’s anyone in the fiber arts world goes there at least once in a while. I have no idea what it’s like because I’ve never been there.

I mention Rhinebeck because I just finished this sweater, Alpenglow by Andrea Mowry, for the Budget Sweater Makealong I’m hosting with Ruth Brasch and Marcela Chang (which I have posted about here). Andrea designs a special sweater for Rhinebeck each year, which is then knit by approximately a quadzillion knitters from all over the world; then all quadzillion of these knitters, or at least a whole ton of them, have a meetup and group photo at Rhinebeck. Again, I’ve never been there but so I am told. Alpenglow was this year’s sweater. So while I was doing the colorwork cuffs and picking up stitches for the neck ribbing, I was keeping an eye on Instagram and seeing the Rhinebeck photos come back in real time.

There were a lot of Alpenglows. Like, a terrifying number of them. Enough to tell who the cool people were at the festival. Unless the photos lied, there were people who made Alpenglows, and then everyone else.

Now, unlike all the other Alpenglows that booked up every hotel in Poughkeepsie (not exaggerating, some people who decided to go last minute couldn’t find accommodations), this Alpenglow is not a cool Alpenglow. I didn’t use Spincycle, that hallowed handspun lookalike of which the trendy knitters are so fond (their wallets are likely less so inclined) or even Magpie Fibers, which is stunning, because the stash supplied what was needful and my bank account sighed in relief. (The Patons Kroy Socks colorway I replaced the Spincycle with is decades old and no longer in production, so trendiness points certainly deducted.) I also hacked the pattern to suit my fancy, making it a scoop neck instead of a turtleneck and the sleeves tighter, because we like our sweaters to fit the way we like them to fit. I was also not even at Rhinebeck, let alone in the group photo, and I’d have ruined it if I was, like the person who turns up to a glitzy Christmas party in a Hawaiian shirt.

But hey, I think my sweater’s pretty great. It fits quite nicely on the whole and while the sleeves did pan out a little more snug than would have been ideal in retrospect, they’re still pretty comfy. To me, this isn’t really a special occasion kind of sweater; more of a cozy, everyday sweatshirt. I will likely be seen at the grocery store, in the car, and on the couch in this. Just not at Rhinebeck, because the contrarian in me would wear something else.

In the immortal words of Aunt Augusta in The Importance of Being Earnest, “The only people who don’t like society are the people who can’t get into it.” I confess myself to be one such heathen. We don’t go the cool places wearing the cool yarn with the cool people because, well, we’re not particularly cool and trying to pull it off would just be tacky. But we still have fun. And fun sweaters.