I Can Knit That! (But Do I Want To?) 

Prefer to listen? Head over to my Substack for the audio version of this essay

It comes with being a knitter, a particular phrase that is never more than a breath away from being said out loud, or, at the very least, quietly forming in the back of your mind. You know how it goes: You’re wandering through a clothing store when you see it: a gorgeous sweater. Maybe it’s a cardigan, maybe a vest, whatever it is, you’re drawn to it almost immediately. You reach out to feel it because, of course, you do. The fabric is lovely, the color is perfect, they actually have it in your size and, better still, it looks like you; your style, your colors, your whole vibe. So you take it off the rack and head toward the fitting room, already imagining where you’ll wear it and what you own that will go with it.

And then you stop, maybe you don’t even make it to the fitting room, because the knitter in you has been examining it too, and has finally reached the conclusion, I can knit this. And back on the rack it goes.

Never mind that you didn’t walk into the store looking for a knitting project, or that what caught your eye was an actual sweater, one that already exists, in your size, in a color and fiber you love, and that you could conceivably be wearing by dinner. But, you’re a knitter, you can knit it. The question I’ve finally started asking myself is: But do I want to?

Because I can knit that is rarely as simple as it sounds. First, there’s the yarn; depending on what you’re looking at and where you’re shopping, knitting it yourself might save you money, but it also might cost considerably more. We knitters are accustomed to that particular bit of arithmetic; making our own sweater isn’t necessarily the economical choice, and most of the time that isn’t why we’re doing it anyway.

Then there’s the pattern. Maybe one exists, maybe you’ll spend an evening on Ravelry looking for one that is almost, but not quite, right; the neckline is wrong, the gauge is wrong, the sleeves aren’t quite right. Eventually you find yourself contemplating three patterns and wondering whether you can take the neckline from one, the body from another and the sleeves from a third, or maybe you can just draft it yourself. Suddenly, the sweater you could knit has become a project before you’ve even cast on.

And then there’s time. Yes, I can knit the sweater, but while I’m knitting that sweater, I’m not knitting something else. My knitting time isn’t unlimited. If I spend the next six weeks recreating something I could have bought, that’s six weeks I’m not spending on the sweater I can’t stop thinking about, the yarn I’ve been dying to use, or the idea I couldn’t possibly find hanging on a rack.

Of course, none of this necessarily sounds like a problem to a knitter. New yarn? Yes, please, never mind that it costs several times what the sweater on the rack did. An evening browsing Ravelry? Absolutely, time well spent. No pattern? Great, I’ve always wanted to try self-drafting. We are remarkably good at turning every practical argument against knitting the sweater into another reason to knit the sweater.

But honestly, there are just some things I don’t particularly want to knit. I love a fine-gauge sweater, I do not necessarily want to knit acres of fine-gauge stockinette to own one; I can admire a beautiful oversized shawl-collar cardigan without wanting to knit that shawl collar. Sometimes I love the finished garment while knowing, with absolute certainty, that I would not enjoy making it, and that should probably be enough of a reason.

But there’s a self-imposed knitter’s guilt that can creep in once you’ve been doing this long enough; buying a knitted sweater can feel, while not wrong, just not right. Why would I buy something I can make myself, especially when the version I make could be nicer? I can choose better yarn, make the sleeves exactly the length I want them, change the neckline, add or subtract length, and make the whole thing fit me rather than hoping I fit it. All true, but none of that means I have to.

Sometimes the sweater on the rack is already pretty great.  It fits, I like the fiber and I love the color. The price is reasonable, probably less than I’d spend on the yarn, and I can wear it tomorrow. And if I’m buying it from an independent shop or a small maker, I will be supporting somebody else’s creative work while I’m at it.

Of course, there are reasons to leave the sweater on the rack; maybe the fit isn’t quite right, I don’t like the fiber or the finishing isn’t very good. Maybe it’s one of those garments that looks wonderful from ten feet away and considerably less wonderful once you start inspecting the seams, which, being a knitter, you absolutely will. But if it’s well made, fits beautifully, feels good, costs an amount I’m comfortable paying and I genuinely love it, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to identify the crime here.

Granted, I haven’t actually bought a sweater in years;  apparently I’m still working through this. But should the right one come along, I would like to think I’ve finally reached the point where I could carry it all the way to the register without hearing that little voice, or at least without listening to it.

A Personal Note: 

Last winter, I came across a random photo on social media of a woman wearing what may be my perfect argyle sweater, oversized, beautifully proportioned, in the softest shades of gray and taupe. I did some fairly determined online sleuthing and eventually tracked it down, only to discover that it was sold out. It still is. I have been looking for something similar ever since.

Did I consider knitting it? Not for a single second. I have heard enough about knitting argyle to know that this is not a particular knitting experience I need to have. My mother, in fact, gave up knitting altogether after attempting a pair of argyle socks for my father, which feels less like family history and more like a cautionary tale. I did briefly consider a workaround: knit the sweater, then add the argyle with duplicate stitch. I even bought a duplicate-stitch argyle pattern before accepting that I had simply found a different way to make a sweater I wouldn’t enjoy making.

And so, my fellow knitter, the search continues. I have looked at new sweaters and secondhand sweaters, and have reached the point where I am essentially standing in the marketplace with my credit card raised, waiting for someone to take my money. So far, no takers. Somewhere, I hope, is an oversized gray-and-taupe argyle sweater that I will happily buy without the slightest thought that I ought to have made it myself. 

Postscript: Between writing this essay and publishing it, I found an oversized gray and taupe wool blend argyle sweater secondhand that was reasonably priced. I bought the knit. 

Of course, if you do feel like knitting the sweater, you’ll need some yarn. For that, there’s Pearl & Clover Yarn Co.