My Septic Dick Sweater

A few months ago, my neighbor across the street (who works at a yarn shop, BTW) found a pattern for a sweater online. It was this one called “The Pearl Clutcher.” (Credit to Ravelry and Kayla Dyches. As a side note, she is the same knitter who posted a pattern called “clam hands” and mentions on the page here that they are most certainly flowers on the gloves and not vaginas. Mind out of the gutter, people!)

Once she saw the dick sweater, my neighbor immediately texted me because, in my neighborhood, if you need a fictional book written that’s loosely based on the swingers who hang out at the pool (cough cough The Caretaker) or want someone to have the balls to wear a dick sweater in public, you knock on my door.

The text conversation then went something like this:

Neighbor: You need this for signings.

Me: I certainly do. Can you make this? I can’t. (I only know how to do a simple knit stitch and have neither the math skills nor the pattern reading skills to make this.)

Neighbor: Of course!

Me: How long would it take?

Neighbor: Couple months

Since then, the discussion was tabled because life happened. Neighbor lady became a grandmother, I got another dog that likes to eat my curtains. You know…things.

Then, last week…

Neighbor: I’m having surgery in July and can make you that dick sweater. Do you want to come over and I’ll do measurements?

I knock on her door, and her long-suffering husband waves me in. She yells from upstairs she’ll be down in a minute, and when she comes down with a measuring tape, says, “Ready to measure your dicks?”

Her husband: Silently laughs to himself and shakes his head. (Poor guy.)

Neighbor: You need to think about what color you want the dicks. (More snickering from her husband.)

Me: What are my options?

Neighbor (shrugs): I don’t know. What color do you like your dicks? You could do a couple flesh tones and be inclusive.

Me (nodding): Let’s do that. Yes, to all the dicks.

She took some measurements, and we worked out a time to get the yarn. I went to the shop she works at when her shift was ending, and I picked out the colors in the picture above.

Now, you may be confused because there is no flesh tone color in that photo. We talked over the dick sweater picture in a corner of the shop and used words to describe the dicks in public like “main features.”

Like one does in public when discussing dicks.

In the end, we settled on the purple for the base since I love purple, the green for the dicks because we thought it would offset the purple nicely, and the white for…well, that one is obvious.

Once I got home, I realized that the green could give off a “septic” vibe of the dicks, so now my husband and I jokingly refer to this project as “my septic dick sweater.”

Anywho, my neighbor has lovingly agreed to post short videos of her making it for me, and I’ll update my blog and social media with the progress as I try it on in phases, so you can see it. Of course, I’ll post pics when it’s done.

If you’re coming to Books by the Arch in St. Louis in October, it should be done by then, so I’ll be rocking it at both my panel and the signing. Come see my septic dick sweater!

You can also follow the hashtag #mydicksweater on Instagram and Facebook (@authortoriross on both) over the next couple of months starting around mid-July when she starts on it.

Now…about those “clam hands.”