I started this project because I had an upcoming short trip to San Francisco and I needed to knit on the plane, in the airport, and while waiting in general. All my other projects at the time were large and cumbersome, so I was looking for something that would take up little space with the yarn I needed. Not too long before that, I found some yarn that I somehow neglected to add to my Ravelry stash, but it was gorgeous and soft and just asking to be knit with. And I only had three skeins of it, so it was perfect to take with me on a trip. I did some research and found the perfect item for the amount of yarn I had: a top-down sleeveless cardigan. So it was settled: I had the yarn, the design, and the needles. I wound the yarn into balls and was ready for the trip.
However, I never actually looked at the pattern (when I pinned the picture of it, I didn’t realize it was a free Ravelry pattern) and was figuring out how to make it. I figured each of the four sides were the same fraction of the total, so I made the divisions and started knitting and doing the increases. I messed up in the beginning, casting on way too many stitches, and took it apart on the flight there, but then it seemed to be going really well. I knit the rest of the flight, on the trains, and while I was waiting in lines (I was wearing a cardigan with pockets, so I just had the ball of yarn in the pocket and knit standing up, which was actually really cool) in San Francisco. The city itself was horrible and I couldn’t wait to get home, but I am glad I had my knitting to keep me sane.
While at the airport waiting for the flight home, I realized I made a huge mistake. I divided the stitches into four sections instead of the five it needed for the front to be halves. Embarrassed by going through a third of the yarn before I realized this, I took everything apart and started over. It was heartbreaking. I felt like I wasted the whole trip and got nothing done because all I had left was just a two-hour flight.
But it was that disappointment with myself that threw me into a knitting frenzy, allowing me to knit faster than I ever have before (I am usually a slow knitter). I started up again at the airport (with the correct divisions this time) and had a few rows done before we boarded, but that time on the plane was miraculous. It was late when we took off and the lights were turned off during the takeoff, so I knit in the dark because, I am ashamed to admit, I couldn’t figure out how to turn the individual light on. I pressed on until there was a bit more illumination from the cabin lights when the flight attendants started walking around offering drinks and snacks. I asked one of them to show me how to turn the light on and kept knitting at the speed of light. It was amazing – rows just flew by, fueled by my need to come home with some sense of accomplishment.
When we landed, I had a tiny bit of the first skein left. I knit in two hours as much as I knit during the first flight and airport wait, the whole day before the return flight, and the airport wait combined. The only thing that made me sad then was that if I did it right the first time, I could have knit twice as much and been almost done. Then again, it was as if I took a nap on the flight home.
The rest of the cardigan worked up much slower, of course, but I loved working with that yarn and the color was so gorgeous. I worked on it during a couple of knitting club meetings and then made a push to finish it late one night. To my disappointment, it didn’t fit how I thought it would, so it sat there waiting for me to figure out how to join the sides. I didn’t want buttons and I didn’t have any leftover yarn for the strings like the pattern had. It didn’t drape very well on the bottom, so I needed to make sure the bottom was joined too, not just at the top.
While I was figuring this one out, I knit a similar cardigan with a different yarn and used the leftovers from that one to lace up the sides in a zig zag pattern. So I later found some green ribbon I had and ended up doing the same to this cardigan. I actually like the ribbon better, but next time, I will need to make sure I divide the initial stitches to leave more for the body and less for the shoulders.
Here are links to this project on Ravelry and Pinterest.
