Nothing beats a knitting project that you don't need to think about. You can grab the project and head to the doctor's office, car trip, or coffee shop without worrying about losing your place or looking at the pattern every few stitches. Mindless knitting means you can sit back, relax, and knit. There are several mindless stitch patterns available including stockinette stitch, seed stitch, and garter stitch to name a few.
Using DK weight yarn, I knit a swatch in garter stitch. I liked how it looked and thought it would look nice in a simple drop shoulder cardigan. Although knitting in garter stitch is mindless, I also didn't want to get bored by knitting every row for the sweater. I wanted to add some interest to the cardigan and started sketching a mid-length cardigan, with a shawl collar, and pockets. I decided to knit the sweater in pieces for simplicity and portability. Not to mention I don't mind seaming the pieces during finishing. Here's a sketch that I drew on scrap paper of the cardigan -
To start, I used the Provisional Cast on Over the Cable Needle method to cast on for the back. I wasn't sure how I wanted to create the ribbing and using the provisional cast-on I could make that decision later. The cardigan was going to have 6" / 15 cm of ease. From there, I knit. I placed a marker every 10 rows to keep track of how many rows I knit and when to stop knitting based on my row gauge. Below is the back of the sweater.
I'm now working on the left front of the cardigan. The front will be a bit more challenging for me as I have never designed a shawl collar before. The plan is to create the shawl collar using short rows.
