Bruce Weinstein - Knits Men Want

To Mark, who wears everything I knit for him.

Published in 2010 by Stewart, Tabori & Chang
An imprint of ABRAMS

Text copyright 2010 by Bruce Weinstein
Photographs copyright 2010 by Jared Flood

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Weinstein, Bruce, 1960

Knits men want / by Bruce Weinstein ; photographs by Jared Flood.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-58479-840-8

1. Knitting. 2. Mens clothing. I. Title.

TT825.W453 2010

746.432 dc22 2009035053

Editors: Liana Allday and Melanie Falick
Designer: Susi Oberhelman
Production Manager: Jacqueline Poirier

The text of this book was composed in Berthold Akzidenz Grotesque and Mercury.

Printed and bound in
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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SKI SWEATER

BASIC PULLOVER AND VEST

BASIC CARDIGAN TWO WAYS

RAGLAN-SLEEVED HENLEY

HOODED SWEATSHIRT

BASEBALL JERSEY

FINGERLESS MITTS

THICK AND WARM SOCKS

REVERSIBLE CABLE SCARF

WATCH CAP

Its 6 p.m. on a Thursday evening in early fall. My class at Sit-N-Knit, a spacious and welcoming yarn shop in Bloomfield, Connecticut, is filling upten women have come to learn how to knit sweaters from the top down. Each one is knitting a sweater for herself, and each seems to have a sad story to tell about her experiences knitting for a man in her life. None of them are eager to try again; Im hoping to change a few minds.

I always bring food to class. It helps everyone relax, gets people talking, and ensures theyll all come back week after week no matter how frustrated they might be with their sweaters or how little progress they may have made. On the menu this week is a three-layer coconut cake from my latest cookbook.

Around the table everyone is eating, casting on, and sharing their stories. Mary says shes hesitant to make anything for her husband since the first sweater she knitted for him ended up at the Salvation Army. I dont know how, but she recounts the story with a smile and great humor. Irma says her husband begs her to bake cakes like mine, but shes on strike since he doesnt appreciate her knitting. Barbara is wearing a sweater she made for her husband. I hear their tales and encourage them to keep knitting for their guys. But regardless of their talent, I realize that these women have some homework to do before they will be able to create garments the men in their lives will want to wear: They first have to understand the male psyche.

Over the years, many women have knitted beautiful items for their boyfriends, husbands, sons, brothers, fathers, and uncles, only to have the goods packed away in drawers never to see the light of day.

Disappointing? Yes. Frustrating? Certainly. But is a man who does this being intentionally insensitive? Is he trying to push his girlfriends buttons? Is he holding out for something more exciting from his wife in bed? Not at all.

When men dont wear what women make them, theyre just being menwith their own quirky likes and dislikes and an inability to express them. When they abuse the garments knitters make them, theyre still just being menhardwired not to think about feelings, not to think about how much work went into making them, and not understanding why their behavior is so upsetting. Women cant expect to change these male characteristics, but they can change what they choose to make for the men in their lives.

As a rule, most men dont read Vogue, window shop, or care about fashion. They dont know whats in style and, in most cases, they dont care. While women know that fashions change and that beauty has its price, men dont pay attention to any of it. Men like three things: simple designs, muted colors, and soft fabrics. And to hell with what the magazines, fashion columns, and yes, even their women, tell them they should wear. What this means is that your man will rarely pick out the same pattern and yarn for himself that you would pick out for him. And what makes this situation even more challenging is that men dont communicate as well as women do, so youll rarely get him to tell you up front what he likes. But if women want to succeed at knitting for men, theyre going to have to find a way to extract this information from the male brain.

Now, before you give up on knitting for men altogether, know that help is on the way. As a man, I know what men like and dont like, which gives me a genetic edge that most knitters dont have. And as a knitting instructor, I am equipped to be your translator, and to help you match your knitting skills with what the men in your life really want. (For startersheres an easy onenix the knitted iPod, golf club, and beer cozies.)

I learned to knit from my grandmother, a dressmaker by trade. She worked for top designers in New York City, creating samples from sketches. Her creations were exclusively for women and always au courant. During her off hours, she knitted exclusively for men: me, my brother, and my cousin. These creations were anything but trendy. They were dark, simple sweaters that we wore and loved. My grandmother knew what worked for men and it had nothing to do with her personal taste or what she created for runway models.

Only once did my grandmother knit me a sweater that I refused to wear, and in all honesty, I asked for it. On my first day of college, I befriended the woman sitting next to me in graphic design class. Her name was Rainey Day (yes, that is her real name). I fell in love with her Bing-cherry tinted hair and her hip-length tunic sweater with wide horizontal ribs that started at the bottom hem and went all the way up to the oversized turtleneck. She told me she designed and knitted the sweater and I immediately asked to borrow it. I took it to my grandmother and begged her to make me one.

Nice work, she said, but why do you want a womans sweater?

I was young, thin, and in art school, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Looking back, I realize that I wanted that sweater as a work of art, not as a piece of clothing. My grandmother made the sweater in my size and by the time shed finished it I had to admit that, despite my bohemian attitude, I would never wear it. Ive kept that sweater to this day, partly because I feel guilty all these years later that I made her work so hard on a sweater that I never put on and partly because its my own personal time capsule of the late 1970s. But its also a good reminder for me of how easy it is to veer off course if you arent careful.