OLD AND CHERISHED: Lopi Sweaters and the DIY Tradition

"All the world loves a do-it-yourselfer."

That's what my Mom wrote--in 1966. She and my Dad steered us toward DIY before it was cool. He built our furniture, she knit when she had the chance, my sister sewed and embroidered, and my brother built models and things in the woods. So we were all "makers". Much as we loved it, my Mom will also tell you it was born of necessity when times were tight.

But let's talk about this gorgeous vintage lopi sweater from the late 60s. Because if you are a baby boomer, you may have had one, too.

Sweaters from lopi wool are knit densely to keep out the cold.
Its name originally referred to wool that has not been spun.

My mother made me this sweater when I was in junior high school, and it is still in my armory for long winters. Her first lopi creation was a surprise for my father, and her frantic and secretive knitting as she tried to finish it one Christmas goes down in the family history books. I remember sitting on her bed while she knit during a dark early winter night, assigned to the task of switching balls of color so they would not become entangled and slow her down.

Icelandic sheep have two layers of fleece: 

an outer water-repellent coat (tog) and 

an insulating undercoat (thel). Both fibers 

are blended to create lopi yarn.

This lopi wool, she said, was created from the fleece of Icelandic sheep, and the colors were undyed -- au naturel. "Can you imagine," she breathed, "that these fibers came straight from the sheep on the Arctic tundra? Feel! And it still has the natural oils!"

Vintage macrame

It was the 60s. We were also discovering "natural foods" from Adele Davis, growing our hair long, and learning to macrame hangers for all of our new indoor plants. It was before polyester fleece, down, and ultralight down. Before Patagonia and North Face. People kept warm by wearing wool and sometimes leather. "Mink stole" was code for rich.

The classic lopi sweater with a patterned yoke and knit in the round began to appear in the 1950s and quickly caught on. According to one source, lopi wool was available during World World II when other yarns were not. The yoked sweaters enjoy huge popularity to this day in Iceland, and Icelandic sheep are a popular breed among farmers in North America.

As for my Dad's lopi wool sweater, Mom indeed finished it, though just a few weeks later. But the story of that particular Christmas, when it seemed our whole family was on DIY steroids, made it into her weekly column, "Home at Home", for the Harrisburg Sunday Patriot News. (reprinted below).

HOME AT HEART

Holiday Projects May Test Dad’s Christmas Spirit

by Dottie Lebo

December 4, 1966

“Why can’t we ever enter the festive season sensibly?” lamented the head of the household.

“What exactly do you mean by sensibly?” I asked demurely from beneath a pile of felt remnants and odd fragments of patterns.

“Well, last year it was wreaths and the year before that it was coat hanger trees.  Heaven only knows that it will be this year.”

Tissue-paper wreaths

I interrupted his soliloquy.  “Look, I forgot all about these darling Santas.”  There were a dozen or so red felt Santa faces in a box marked “Maps and Folders.”

We were sitting on the floor in the midst of what in some homes might be called “artful clutter,’ in others, “dust collectors” and in our particular abode goes by the name of “Lower Slobovia.”  It contains all the marking of do-it-yourself projects, many unfinished projects and enough sequins, braid, felt, and assorted trivia to decorate Times Square.

“If you ever would get rid of some of this, I’ll build you the bookshelves you always are talking about,” continued my hero.

“Get rid of this!” I was suitably shaken.  “Why you never know when the Brownie troop might need two square yards of pink brocade or a juice can full of yellow sequins.  Which reminds me, have you any chicken wire in the basement?”

Now it was his turn to be shaken.  “I thought we decided absolutely no more pets until springtime!”

“For wreaths, silly.  There are hundreds of pine cones somewhere in a big shopping bag, if I could just find that shopping bag.”

He began to wilt visibly.  In another two weeks he will be drilling holes in Yule logs to hold candles and perhaps even stringing pinecones with the rest of us.

All the world loves a do-it-yourselfer.

The dime stores are filled with styrofoam in a hundred different shapes and sizes.

There are a dozen books on the newsstand telling how to build everything from a dollhouse to a miniature gumdrop castle.  People build whole careers on dreaming up projects for other people.

Me and my lopi

My earliest memories of the holiday season are of my own mother hastening through the pre-dawn knitting the last sleeve, sewing tiny buttons on miniscule doll clothes or spraying the last gilt angel.

Last year our own girls took up crepe paper wreath-making.  We had wreaths of every color hanging from every picture hook and ledge in the house.

This year it’s folded trees made from Reader’s Digests.  There must be two dozen trees in various stages of folding and spraying.  Who ever heard of a pale blue Reader’s Digest tree?

Remember the year of the toothpick trees?

And the year we saved 74 empty juice cans and forgot wheat we had planned to make with them?

This must be the holiday I finish Dear Friend’s Finnish sweater, started and promised two years ago.  Somehow it doesn’t mean much anymore when I tell him he would have to pay fifty dollars for that sweater in a Carnaby Street Shop.  (I dare not think of the three half-finished pairs of wool socks buried somewhere in the bottom drawer.  Maybe I can find some dachsund owners who would like argyle sweaters for their pets.

Reader's Digest Christmas trees

I’ve discovered a marvelous pattern for a lacy stole, a breakfast tray and a see-saw.  Himself is somewhat distraught.  “Why should I make a see-saw?  We don’t know a soul we can give a see-saw to.”  He has lost his affinity for the aesthetic balance of a bright orange see-saw.  I pull out my sympathetic Helen Hayes look, “Darling, why don’t you make a drink and read the new Reader’s Digest.  There’s a great article on archaeology.”

“I can’t,” he announces glumly, “It’s already folded and sprayed.  Pink.  Whoever heard of a pint tree?”

“M-o-t-h-e-r” comes a call from the bottom of the stairwell.  “Where are the toothpicks?  I have to take 190 tomorrow for a project in art class.”

Our mantel will never hold all this!