I had always wanted to make a maple leaf sweater. When I was accepted to grad school on the other side of the country, I figured the cross-country road trip was the perfect opportunity to do just that.

My good friend Dave joined me on the trip. As fate would have it Dave did the majority of the driving. Actually, it was probably less fate than the fact he was just plain nervous about my driving. Just because I look at the scenery while driving doesn’t mean I’m a bad driver. And it was hard not too, this country is so damn beautiful! But I digress. The point of the story is that Dave did most of the driving, leaving me with plenty of time to knit.

I bought the yarn and worked out the sweater pattern in the summer, and casted on as we left Toronto. Unfortunately, by the time we got to Vancouver I was so sick of the project, hated the yarn, and was pretty sure I would never wear the sweater even if I finished it that it was dismissed to my stash pile. It languished there for 7 years.

Motivated by a recent desire to knock items off the “things I started, yet never finished” list, I decided to convert the half-completed sweater into a pillow. The pillow is for Dave who is now lives in California. It will hopefully serve as a memento of our beautiful country and our fantastic cross-Canada road trip.

To knit the back up quickly, I used two strands of yarn on 8mm needles and followed a diamond knit twist pattern. It is sewn to fit a 16” x 16” pillow.

I’m happy with how it turned out – so much so that I’m contemplating finishing the half-finished sweater back and make a pillow for myself.