In praise of the anxiety sweater

It was November 2017 when I first felt the inescapable, inexplicable urge to knit a sweater. It was, not coincidentally, at a moment I might describe as a muted personal crisis, the kind that you think about in the darkness at night, knowing you will eventually have to act, but not yet knowing what that action will be, all of life saturated in the meantime with a muffled, agonizing question.

I'd knit on and off my whole life prior to that point, but always at a smaller scale: a wave of hats approaching the holiday season, the odd scarf, mittens while at summer camp. As a teenager I had once or twice started, and then abandoned, a sweater . This was a time when gauge (a term that describes how big your knitting will eventually measure, across a certain number of stitches, on a certain size of needle, and which is noted on every knitting pattern) seemed overly precious to me-- an affectation, an excess of caution-- rather than a necessary element of ending up with a wearable garment rather than an incoherent mass of fabric.

At the time the sweater urge hit me, I hadn't knit with any kind of meaningful focus or ambition in years. But the itch became pervasive, and so I found myself at Purl Soho, spending too much money on a heap of variegated merino wool for which I had what felt like seemingly silly aspirations.

I took the sweater home with me that Thanksgiving break, which I spent mostly inert on a suburban couch, binging reality television and knitting frantically. I taught myself another way of holding the yarn so that I could occasionally alternate and my hands would hurt less from the repetitive motion. (I learned from two (2) videos of the world's fastest knitter that are available online, which I watched over, and over, and over. Shout out to the Yarn Harlot and Irish lever knitting, it really is superior.)

In three weeks, maybe four, I had finished the sweater. It's a garment that I still wear often, and refer to affectionately as "the anxiety sweater". There have been other sweaters since, but none which I feel quite as fondly towards.

One thing that is beautiful about knitting-- and I truly recommend learning to knit, if it's something you're interested in-- is that when you get good enough at it, you can do it without looking at your hands. It's an exquisite channel for nervous energy, pulling tiny loops through further tiny loops, eventually learning more elaborate ways of pulling those tiny loops, pouring endless small repetitions into a thing that ultimately coheres into an almost miraculous whole. It it a testament to discrete actions, actions which feel like nothing in the moment, eventually building up to something. It is, in short, a perfect activity when you feel stifled, a way your hands can assure the rest of your body that you will eventually make progress, that things will eventually change, even if the tiny motions don't look like much for now.

It is also a very, very good way to feel like you're accomplishing something while you binge Netflix or your other content of choice, which right now might be equally important.

If you're a knitter who wants to learn what on earth Irish lever knitting is, or a non-knitter who wants recommendations for where and how to start, let me know. In the meantime, I'll be casting on a sweater: probably more than one, if I'm honest. Desperate times call for desperate knitting.