Yesterday I went out web-walking – mostly to read other people’s blogs. I came across Life in the Frogpond, and a post on it made earlier in the week by Becky of skinnyrabbit.com. She was looking at vintage tennis sweater patterns, and offered up this onefrom a1956 Bernat Handicrafter pattern leaflet (this scan is Becky’s, but the original copyright on both pattern and image is held by Emile Bernat & Sons):

I collapsed into a pile of amusement, because my mother had knit this **exact** sweater for my uncle when he was a teenager, probably circa 1958 or so. This sweater still exists! I have it in my closet right now:

It’s held up extremely well. No excessive wear, weak spots ormoth holes in the entire piece, although once natural color ecru wool has aged somewhat to a beige/light yellow, and somewhere along the line aggressive laundering seems to have migrated some of the dye from the blue stripes.

Not only do I have the piece, I also have a photo of ME wearing it as a teen. This is from my high school yearbook. As you can tell from the wire frame glasses, nerd-bunch hair and wide shirt collar, was taken in the ’70s:

Now that I’ve dated myself, I can also say that this46-year oldtennie is waiting for my own Tween-ager should she want to wear it when she’s big enough.

Moral of the story: Use good wool. It lasts forever.