I did another big movie knitting project! I knit the Empire State Cardigan while watching 44 movies from 44 different countries, changing colors for each one, and I made a trio of videos throughout the project, each one with a knitting technique tutorial included. Yes, this project’s name means it was originally meant to be done in March (more about the March Around the World movie challenge here!), and yes I’m blogging about it in July, but the project itself took about two months longer than intended due to life events so it seems fitting for this post to have dragged it out even longer!
I love the finished sweater—since I finished it in late spring it hasn’t gotten much wear but I’m sure to pull it out in the fall! It’s made with triple-stranded merino-based sock yarns and it’s so soft and squishy. I am considering adding pockets, like I did with my October 2024 horror movie cardigan.
In each video in the series I talked about the sweater-knitting process, as well as the movies I watched while knitting each stripe. In the first video I had completed the body before separating at the underarms, and I talked about the first 17 movies I watched, plus some extras that I watched not while knitting (due to aforementioned life events messing with my project plans).
That video ends with a tutorial for triple-stranding your yarn as you knit, which is a great technique to know if you have fingering or lace weight stash yarn that you’d rather work at a heavier gauge. No need to deal with three separate balls!
In the second video I talked about making the top body fronts and back, while watching 11 movies, including my least favorite of the challenge—can you guess?!
That video ends with tutorials for how to weave in your ends as you knit, for both English and Continental knitters. The above diagrams show weaving in a single end, and the video shows weaving in two ends—the method is the same. If weaving in two then switch back and forth between the two for each stitch.
In the third video I showed off the finished cardigan and talked about the 16 movies I watched while knitting the sleeves (including multiple very intense docs), plus I went off on a couple of separate rants about streaming services and public libraries (free movie streaming with no ads!! kanopy! hoopla!). Watch all the way to the end to hear me talk shit on netflix :-p
That video includes a tutorial for the tubular bind-off method that I chose to use when finishing my sleeves, which feels much like grafting to do.
Here are all 44 movies I watched while knitting the sweater, with my star rating (plus whether I wrote a review or gave it a heart) underneath each poster.
Here are all 57 countries I watched movies from—red was the first section/video, turquoise was the second, purple was the third, and gold was the extra 13 movies I watched in the second half of March to complete the initial March Around the World movie challenge between the first and second sections.
The videos and the tutorials were all posted to my free Patreon as I did the project, and projects will continue to be posted there in the future, with there sometimes being exclusive-to-patreon items like downloadable zines, so sign up there if you’re not already!
I obviously had fun wearing my movie sweater to movie-related locations! Shout out to awesome local video rental spot Movie Madness ❤ ❤ ❤
Even though there were hiccups along the way (illness! family emergency with lengthy travel! a sprained ankle!) I enjoyed doing this project a lot. I’m thinking about making a zine about movie knitting projects. Not sure what it’ll look like exactly, but there may be a pattern that’s designed to work well for movie knitting (not a garment). Let me know anything specific you’d like to see in such a zine, or if you have an idea for a future movie knitting project!
Lee Does Stuff 