I Have Not Put The Heating On Yet. It Is The Middle Of September.
I want to be clear about something before I start. I am not a person who writes in about jumpers. I have never reviewed anything in my life. But my daughter rang last week and asked why I sounded so pleased with myself, and the honest answer was that it was the fourteenth of September and I still had not touched the thermostat.
That has not happened in this house in twenty-odd years.
So I will tell you what changed, because two women at my Thursday walking group have already asked me, and it seems a bit mean to keep it to myself.
I had not bought a cold jumper in years. I had only ever bought cosy-looking ones.
Here is the problem I had quietly given up on. Every autumn I buy what the labels call a cosy knit. It feels lovely in the shop. Then October arrives and I find I am wearing it with a cardigan over the top, and by November there is a coat involved as well, indoors, which is a ridiculous way to live in your own kitchen.
And they never last. Two washes and the sleeves go thin at the elbow. You hold one up to the window and you can see the garden through it. I had started thinking that was simply what jumpers were now, and that the properly warm ones had stopped being made sometime around 1986.
Then My Neighbour Turned Up At The Bus Stop In One
Her name is Wendy and she is not a woman who dresses up. That is exactly why I noticed. She was standing there on a genuinely cold morning in a knitted jumper and no coat at all, and she looked warm, and more to the point she looked like herself.
I asked her outright. She said it was the Ursula, from Evely Rose Boutique — a small British boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now — and that she had bought it in a moment of weakness in August and worn it more or less constantly since.
I ordered one before the bus came. I am not proud of the speed of it.
You can tell within about four seconds. It is heavier than the jumpers I have been buying, in the way a proper wool blanket is heavier than a throw. It is not a jumper you wear under a coat. It is the thing you wear instead of one.
What Happened On The Thursday Walk
We do about four miles from the car park, and it was one of those mornings where everyone arrives slightly hunched and complaining. I had come in the Ursula and dark jeans, no coat.
Marjorie looked me up and down and said, and I quote, “Well, someone has had a think about it.” Which from Marjorie is practically a standing ovation. Two of them had the label out of the back of my neck before we reached the first stile.
What I had not expected is how it behaves when you actually move. The cuffs stay where you put them instead of dropping over your hands, and the ribbed hem sits at your hip rather than riding up your back every time you climb a gate. Small things. They are the whole difference between a jumper you wear and a jumper you keep adjusting.
And the pattern. I keep coming back to the pattern, because it is the part photographs do not quite carry.
Three Things I Have Learned
One. Weight is the whole thing. Nobody puts it on the label, but it is the only measure that matters in a winter jumper. A thin knit in a nice colour will always lose to a heavy one. This is a proper Icelandic knit and it behaves like one — nothing see-through when you stretch your arms up over your head, which is more than I can say for the last three I bought.
Two. A knitted pattern and a printed one are not the same purchase. The traditional yoke design here is worked into the knit itself, so it cannot fade, crack or peel off in the wash the way a printed imitation does. It is the difference between something that looks fine on day one and something that still looks like itself in March.
Three. The sizing is honest, and it goes further than most. UK 8/10 right the way up to 22/24, and most of us will want our usual dress size. I did not have to size up out of hope, and the ribbed cuffs and hem have kept their shape through the wash rather than going slack and sad at the edges.
About The Price
I will be straight with you, because I was suspicious myself. The full price on the Ursula is £85, which is what I would expect to pay for a knit of this weight and would have thought about for a fortnight. At the moment it is £42.95.
My first thought was that there must be a catch, and there is not one I have found. It arrived when they said, it came properly packed, and there is free UK delivery and thirty days to send it back if you take it out of the bag and it is not for you. It is rated 4.4 out of 5 from more than 500 reviews, which is not a perfect score, and I trust it rather more for that.
“I wore my Ursula three days running and had to make myself put it in the wash. It has not gone bobbly, which is the test I care about.” — Marian P., Kendal
What I Would Tell You If We Were Friends
If you are already warm enough, ignore all of this and enjoy your October.
But if you are the sort of woman who has a cardigan on over a jumper right now, or who has quietly accepted that being a bit cold indoors is just part of this time of year, that is not a fact about you. It is a fact about the jumpers you have been buying. I only found that out at sixty-two, and I am faintly annoyed about the years in between.
Buy the one you would actually reach for on a grim Tuesday. Not the one you are saving for good. That was my other mistake, and it cost me more than the jumper did.
It is the middle of September and the heating is off. That is the entire review.
Diane
Ursula | Classic Icelandic Knit Sweater
- Hand-finished Icelandic knit, heavier than a basic jumper
- Traditional yoke pattern knitted in, not printed on
- Ribbed cuffs and hem that keep their shape
- True UK sizing, 8/10 through 22/24
- Free UK delivery