Some patterns are addicting. Sometimes this makes sense, you’re excited to see a color work pattern take shape or you’re working with a textured stitch pattern that makes your brain giddy with the chant required to maintain it. The Writer’s Block Cardigan is neither of those things. In fact, it’s literally just garter stitched pieces that eventually need to be knit together. To make matters more mundane, the pieces aren’t significantly different from each other — two front pieces mirror the back piece until a handful of neck shaping rows. So, why couldn’t I put it down?

At first, I thought it was the use of a gradient yarn paired with a solid yarn. The combination of waiting to see how the color flowed from one to the next and the thick yarn meant that it felt as though progress was being made very quickly, even when it wasn’t. Since I typically knit in fingering or lace weight, I don’t think the instant gratification of this project was the thing that lead me daydreaming about working on it, nor do I think the gradient is playing a major role.

Then I considered that I was knitting it for one of my best friends and they were really excited about wearing the finished product. Surely the constant checking in about the sweater’s progress would be enough to keep me reaching for it, but if you remember from my post On Knitting Deadlines, I don’t typically find motivation in them. In fact, the pressure to knit often leaves me reaching for different crafts.

So what has me staying up until 11pm (way way past my bedtime) and struggling to find TV shows to play in the background while I wait for the next round of podcasts to be released? What about this project has me eating through audiobooks and stressing about what to read next? Even as I write this, sitting down to specifically think about the reason, I can’t decern an answer.

While knitting this project, I assumed that the obsessive momentum that carried me through knitting the individual pieces of the sweater would carry me through seaming it. After wet blocking and laying the pieces flat, I casted on Nuvem and waited for everything to dry. And dry, and dry. The only thing that inspired me to pick up the knit pieces was the fear of my dog deciding they would be a comfortable place to curl up, which would, in turn, mean that I had to rewash everything in order to get his black hair out.

It was almost a week before I started putting the pieces together. True, some of that was drying time, but it was as if my mind knew the act of seaming required more of my attention that I was ready to give after a long day of work. This time, it was the recipient that caused me to pick up the pieces and start putting it together. That and the fact that I was so close to being finished.

All in all, I am happy with this sweater and am toying with the idea of making it again. Though perhaps in a smaller size for myself, the recommended ease is a little too loose for me.