I could not have known when I was finishing my Endurance yoke sweater that I wouldn’t get the chance to wear it much.

Endurance was made as part of the Shackleton Knit Along organised by Fiber Trek last year. We were encouraged to pick a project that represented a mighty challenge to us, a feat of endurance that we would undertake as we followed the 1914 expedition by Shackleton to Antarctica.

You can read about the making of the sweater in a previous post but suffice to say it was an act of endurance undertaken whilst working on my doctorate and finished whilst I recovered from pneumonia. During the ongoing illness triggered by the pneumonia, many things changed for me, energy levels, cognitive functioning and my shape. All of my middle bits got bigger and the shaped yet comfortable yoke sweater got squeezier and squeezier.

After a year, I decided that Endurance couldn’t wait any longer in the drawer. It was time for a change. I cut the body off the yoke, unravelled it then knitted back down from the yoke without waist shaping. The sleeves were also shortened by cutting and reknitting the cuff.

Now Endurance fits Our Dear Boy, all ten years of him with room to grow some also. He loves it because it is so soft and warm. It was taken away on Cub Camp and helped to keep him warm in the tent as the night dropped below zero (degrees Celsius). It came back with rip in the sleeve which thrilled me, because it means he is choosing wool to have adventures in! It was easily mended and the marks of wear can be a thing of beauty. He kindly agreed to pose for these pics but insisted our dog be shown also.