Ten Stitches Up, Nine Down
On knitting, perfectionism, and the scarf that’s been narrating my MIT years
We all know the trope: pick up a hobby, splurge on supplies, try it once, and never touch it again. I took it a step further—starting a scarf in 2019 and heroically refusing to finish it for years. What began as a quick winter project quietly turned into a long-running companion to my time at MIT.
In the fall of my freshman year at MIT, I borrowed a pair of knitting needles from a senior across the hall and ordered the cheapest skein of yarn I could find on Amazon. My goal was simple: knit a warm scarf for the winter, something I didn’t already have as a Californian. With the determination of a beginner, I dove in: knit, and purl, and knit, and purl.
But as midterms hit me like a ton of bricks, the scarf was set aside, then shoved to the back of a drawer, destined to hibernate. When the pandemic uprooted my life, the unfinished scarf was packed away in a storage unit in Cambridge, forgotten amidst hurried moving boxes. It wasn’t until I returned in the fall of 2021 that I rediscovered it. There it was—my blue scarf, a bit crumpled but still full of potential. Once again, I resolved to finish it so that I could have a scarf by the winter: knit, and purl, and knit, and purl.
Predictably, life got in the way. The scarf remained untouched until the summer of 2022, when I moved into the Women’s Independent Living Group (WILG). It felt like my first time living independently—though MIT technically owns WILG, it wasn’t a dorm, so I counted it as my debut into “real adulthood.” That summer was sweltering, and touching a wool scarf was the last thing I wanted to do, but I was determined. With nothing but an internship and quiet evenings, I vowed to knit every night after dinner: knit, and purl, and knit, and purl.
Spoiler alert: I didn’t finish. Senior year swept me away in a whirlwind of classes and the last-minute decision to add a second major. My scarf was relegated to yet another drawer, where it stayed until this year. It had become a sort of pattern: every transition in my life marked by a brief return to the scarf, then another pause.
Now, as a graduate student, life feels both familiar and foreign. I’m still at MIT, but gone are the dorms and meal plans, replaced with grocery lists and the solitude of independent living. The academic pressure is different, too. In undergrad, I juggled so many classes, projects, and clubs that there was no time to fixate on perfection. But now, with research looming and fewer courses, I feel an overwhelming need to master every detail. Last semester, I placed immense pressure on myself to excel in a particularly challenging class. When I made a silly mistake on a midterm that snowballed into several wrong answers, I was devastated. Worse, I knew how to solve the question—I’d just missed one key word. That night, for the first time, the person most disappointed in me was me.
I couldn’t sleep. My mind raced, replaying the mistake over and over, berating me for falling short. Desperate for something to calm my nerves, I picked up my long-abandoned scarf. Up and down the needles went—knit, and purl, and knit, and purl—until exhaustion finally gave way to sleep.
The scarf remains unfinished. But over the years, I’ve realized it tells the story of my time in Cambridge: the ups and downs, the highs and lows, the places I’ve lived. I think one reason I can’t seem to quit on it is that it reminds me of one of my favorite childhood books, Esperanza Rising. In it, Esperanza learns to crochet from her grandmother, Abuelita, who shares this wisdom: “Ten stitches up to the top of the mountain. Add one stitch. Nine stitches down to the bottom of the valley. Skip one.” Through this metaphor, Abuelita teaches her to see life as a series of peaks and valleys, full of setbacks and new beginnings.
I think about that often when I look at my scarf. It’s full of uneven rows and quiet restarts. Maybe that’s why I keep returning to it—it’s the one thing I’ve allowed to remain imperfect. In a world of grades, goals, and deadlines, it asks nothing of me except to keep going—even if slowly, even if unevenly.
And maybe that’s why I’ve never finished it. Maybe I don’t want to. Finishing it might feel like closing a chapter, like admitting my journey in Cambridge is coming to an end. And I’m not ready for that yet. So for now, I’ll keep knitting—knit, and purl, and knit, and purl—letting the scarf, and the journey, continue a little longer.
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