Knitting in cars, or, how I learned to love waiting

by Meg Dedolph

Since the pandemic began and hanging around in coffeehouses has become less enticing for me, I’ve discovered the joy of car knitting.

Not the kind you to do pass the miles on a long trip, the kind that’s like Waiting-for-a-Kid-Knitting, only it's just you. In the car. All by yourself. Which is great.

I’ve always been a fan of the way knitting can fill available space, and while I know there are arguments for doing nothing from time to time, I love it when I can take a few spare minutes here and there and make them into a hat.

So now, whenever I arrive somewhere a few minutes early, or have a little sitting around in the car to do, I pull out a small project and turn on an audiobook or a podcast. Socks are my favorite. This is not the time for a project that requires charts or directions beyond the most basic. Save your lace and cables for a better location. Ditto for color work. Multiple balls of yarn are taxing enough without them rolling around on the floormats.

I also prefer circular needles to DPNs when I knit in the car. They’re easier to fish out from under the seats when I drop one. 

Car knitting reminds me that every little bit adds up. It can already seem like a sock cuff is taking forever as it is, when you have lots of time to work on it, and we all know the jokes about being stuck on Sleeve Island. But projects grow, and eventually, many five- and 10-minute bits of time later, you get a pair of socks.

(Obviously, don't knit and drive at the same time. But have you heard the one about the person who was knitting at the wheel and sped past the parked police officer? The cop turned on his lights and sirens, drove up next to her and shouted, "Pull over!" She held up her knitting and said, "No, officer, it's a cardigan.")