A letter from a reader

At 63, I stopped counting sheep and started wearing them

On Thursday mornings I walk with a group of women at an hour none of us would have chosen alone, which is the whole point of a group. We walk, we complain about our knees, and nobody expects conversation before the first lap is done. I mention this because of what happened on Thursday.

Three different women asked me about my sweater mid-lap. One of them was Diane, who in four years of Thursdays has not voluntarily spoken before seven a.m. She pointed at my sleeve and said the thing I have been repeating all week.

Are those sheep ASLEEP? Every one of them? Oh, that is the smartest thing I have ever seen.

They are all asleep. Every single one. Here is the answer, written down once, with photographs.

How it happens

First, a confession every woman my age will recognize. I have not reliably slept through the night since my fifties. You know the ritual. Lights out, count the sheep, the sheep wander off, and by three a.m. you are wide awake doing the math on everyone’s birthdays and whether the gutters need cleaning.

So the sheep and I have history. A lifetime of counting, nothing to show for it.

Then I saw this sweater, covered in little sheep with their eyes closed, tiny Zzz stitched between them, every last one of them sleeping soundly, and I laughed out loud alone in my kitchen. They sleep so I do not have to. I bought it before my sensible side woke up, which given my sensible side’s sleep schedule, was not difficult.

What I had wrong

Here is what I expected: a novelty. Something cute that would pill by November and embarrass me by spring.

Here is what arrived instead. The sheep are knitted in, not printed on. Each one is a fluffy little raised body you can actually feel, like a tiny rug of a sheep, scattered with dots across a soft slate blue, with sage green ribbing at the collar, cuffs and hem pulling the whole thing together. It reads as charming from across a room and as properly made from four inches, which is the distance at which my walking group inspected it.

Mine is the Elise

It is from Iris and Nora, a small boutique here in Austin that has been quietly dressing women like us for a few years now.

The blue is the grown-up part. A dusty slate, soft and heathered, nothing loud about it, so the sheep get to be the joke while the sweater itself stays entirely respectable. The sage ribbing is the detail nobody expects, a proper contrast collar and deep cuffs that hold their shape and frame the whole flock.

And it is the coziest thing I own by a margin. Relaxed and gently oversized, soft everywhere, dropped shoulders, sleeves long enough to bunch at the wrist the way you want on a cold morning. It goes over jeans, over leggings, over the good black pants when I want to confuse people at lunch.

What happened on the walk

I wore it loose over leggings at six-forty in the morning, expecting nothing, and got three questions, one full stop of the group, and the first pre-seven sentence Diane has produced in four years. When I pointed out that every sheep was asleep, she laughed so hard we lost our pace and had to wave the fast walkers past.

Since Thursday it has done two more walks, a school pickup, and one long porch evening, and my grandson has named six of the sheep, which I consider a binding contract to never get rid of it.

Three things I have learned since

One. Whimsy lands better at our age. On a twenty-year-old, sleeping sheep are cute. On a woman of 63 in respectable slate blue, they are wit. People do not just smile at this sweater, they thank it.

Two. Knitted-in beats printed-on. The raised, fluffy sheep catch the light and invite inspection. A printed version would be a pajama top. This is a piece of knitwear with a sense of humor.

Three. The joke starts the conversation, the coziness keeps the sweater on. The sheep get the laughs, but it is the soft blue, the sage ribbing and the easy oversized cut that have put it on my body four days out of seven since it arrived.

About the price

I want to be straightforward about this, because it was the thing that made me hesitate.

The Elise is $54.95 at the moment. It was $110.00.

I have spent more than that on sensible gray sweaters that never once made anyone laugh before seven a.m. For the one piece that broke Diane, it is the best-working thing I own per compliment, and I say that as a woman who tracks such things now.

I did what I imagine you are doing now and went and read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars. Not the suspiciously perfect five you see on some websites, which if I am honest made me trust it rather more. One woman had written, “I bought it as a joke for myself and it has become the most complimented thing I own. The sheep have a following at my church.” That was the one that decided it for me.

It is part of a whole collection of playful retro knits, and I have been back to look with my sensible head on, which is how I know my sensible head is outnumbered by sheep.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sat on the porch with coffee and you asked me, this is what I would say.

If you have counted a lifetime of sheep and gotten nothing back for it, buy the flock. Wear them over leggings to the early walk, point out that they are all asleep, and enjoy being the reason somebody laughs before seven a.m.

Two practical things. Shipping is free, and the boutique told me plainly that once this stock is gone, it is gone, so the middle sizes go first. It comes in sizes S to 5XL.

A lifetime of counting sheep, and it turns out the trick was wearing them.

Peggy