Letters
On the Clock: Daytripper Cardigan
Dear Ann,
I bet you’re wondering how I’m coming along with my plan to time the knitting of my Daytripper Cardigan with a stopwatch. You’re probably particularly curious, because you did not see me working on it for one single minute for the whole week I was in Nashville.
I don’t know about you, but when I’m traveling, or sitting in your kitchen watching Kermit cavort like a cat half his age, I cannot summon the focus to get in the groove on a colorwork yoke. So I saved it for my return home.
Thing I learned: actually knitting on something leads to fast progress.
Here’s how my Daytripper Cardigan looked at 4 hours, 54 minutes, and 58 seconds of knitting in front of the teevee at home:
My léttlopi Colors, from the inside neck outward: GOLDEN, ocean BLUE, RUST, navy blue, Ash (single-stitch dots), and Glacier Blue for the 3-stitch dashes.
After I finished the yoke, I couldn’t resist my inner Little Edie.
And here’s how it looked yesterday afternoon, at 9 hours, 21 minutes.
I’m in the straightaway, the race to the bottom—several skeins of nothing but knit stitches. Whee!
I think running the stopwatch makes me fuss a little less with the slow parts, such as threading the sleeve stitches onto waste yarn. I only re-counted them once instead of several times. Anxiety is the thief of joy, just let it go!
To the knitters out there who are knitting their Daytripper Cardigan by the glow of their phone’s stopwatch, how’s it going?
Love,
Kay
o o o o Kay, those colours are sublime ! Good to see your smîing face too!
Love your sweater, but pullovers are not my friend at all. In fact I just cast off my Kiki Mariko Rug. Late to the party as always but having to wait for the needle to come was part of the delay. Today the felting will happen I hope. I am more than a little nervous.
Passst. It’s a cardigan. Knit in the round like a pullover and then – gasp – cut open down the front when you’re done.
I blocked mine yesterday. Can’t wait to steek and knit the front bands. The tip about steaming the yoke (before you finish) helped me realize that my yoke was just fine and the sweater was worth finishing 🙂 I knit both sleeves before I finished the body to make sure aI had plenty of yarn to make the sweater longer. I love this sweater!
I don’t know if I should switch to a bigger needle for the yoke when I’m doing colorwork
This makes me so happy, Toni. Your yoke was just fine!
I am almost finished with the yoke chart. I love your comment that anxiety is the thief of joy! So true. So no stopwatch for me but I am making sure I spend some time with Daytripper every day and having a very joyful time.
Love those colors!
I missed your date, but this is my next project. I really enjoyed the Zoom Tuesday.
PayPal please!
Not sure what you’re referring to but we do sell our Field Guides on Ravelry where paypal is the means of payment.
Beautiful colors! Impressive progress! Why does the pattern look “wrong” in the last photo? Is that where the piece will be cut and turned into a cardigan?
Yes, that place where the pattern jogs is the steek that will be cut.
Talk about glow! Those colors leap[ off the screen. Love it.
Love the colors and the hat! You’re adorable!
Hooray for the Edie reference! (And the colors are divine.)
You’re so adorable. And the hat is great!! Made me think of Minnie Pearl! with a knitting needle instead of a price tag. Thanks for the laugh❤️.
Go, Speed Racer, go!
Killing me with the colors! I have been talking myself down from “just one more sweater” but you are not helping!!!
It’s that Glacier Blue! Makes the whole thing pop and makes for stunning eye-catcher!
Perfect outfit for the day.
I have such admiration for people who can choose such great color combinations. I had some reservations about the rust color (70’s flashback) but it’s all working beautifully….
These colors are so good! Love the turquoise blue so much. And the navy! I’m definitely going to have to make two of these.
Great hat!
I’m admiring the needles as well! Are they bamboo (Tulip?)?
Yes, they are my trusty Tulips, super handy for this project because I kept changing the length of the cable as the stitch count grew from the neck cast-on. Oh look! Here’s a link! https://www.moderndailyknitting.com/shop/tulip-interchangeable-needle-set/
I am using my Tulips for the Destination Scarf and love them! I tried several other needles first (both wood and Addi) as my Tulips were in another project bag… the metal needles slipped too much and the wood needles were too dark for the dark colors at the start of my scarf. Tulips are perfect – no slipping out of the stitches and so easy to knit with (even with Magic Loop!). Thanks for recommending them, Kay. It was your review that led me to trying them.
I love this idea of timing the sweater. So cool that you are doing this for us. When I think of how many 9-hour-segments of time I have wasted pattering around, I could be done with the yoke and armholes of a sweater! Keep up the good work!
I AM OVER THE MOON WITH THE BEAUTY OF THE COLORS YOU CHOSE FOR THE YOKE SWEATER. MAKES ME WANT TO GIVE IT A TRY!!!
Oh these colors! Like jewels.
Well, this crowd will take jewel-like yarn any day over real jewels. HA!
I love your colour choices and the picture of you wearing it as a hat is so cute you’ve made my day :-D.
Colors are gorgeous in pic! Talk about color shifting!
Little Edie!!!!!
I wish I could knit like all of you. You are like speed people.
Rather than thread my sleeves onto waste yarn, I thread them with a spare cable from the same interchangeable needle set I’m using for knitting, closed off with stoppers. When it’s time for knitting the sleeves, I pop the needle on one end and go. It reduces the time beautifully and the slight reduction in flexibility isn’t a problem.
I love this idea of using the cables & stoppers to hold sleeve stitches, thank you for this wonderful information.
Like everybody else I love, love, love your choice of colors and can already imaging you wearing that sweater with some gorgeous indigo-dyed Alabama Chanin concoction and or what you’re wearing in that photo, but can we please talk about your knot necklace?!? So cool with what you’re wearing! You are slowly but surely convincing me, btw, that dark blues are cool, despite my 1970s vow to renounce navy forever.
What a great idea! I can see it being applied to other joy-sucking circumstances as well. Beautiful sweater colors. I hope we get to see you in it one day. Love you in the hat, Kay! Chloe
I confess that in the interest of coming up with a more informative answer to my non-knitter friends’ question, “how long does it take you to knit a ——-“ than my usual, “I have know idea,” I tried knitting to a stopwatch a few years ago. What I found was that I set the stopwatch, knitted for a while, and walked off to do other things. Never remembered to stop it at the end. Most unhelpful for find the answer!