How long does it take to knit a cardigan?

If you are planning to knit a sweater, you may be wondering how long it takes to knit a cardigan.

There are many variables that go into knitting a sweater such as size, gauge, stitch pattern, needle size, and knitting speed.

For example, a baby sweater will take much less time than a woman’s sweater.

Additionally, the yarn weight (aka yarn thickness) is also a factor. A fingering weight sweater will take much more time to knit than a bulky weight sweater.

I’d also like to mention, how fast you knit is also a factor! Knitting more often will help increase your speed. So get those needles clacking if you want to finish a sweater quickly.

In case you are interested, the cardigan featured in the images is the Ellen Cardigan and it’s a free knitting pattern available here.

Estimated Knitting Time

Let’s say we are making a women’s worsted weight cardigan in stockinette stitch (knit one row, purl one row).

The Back usually takes about 4-6 hours and the two Fronts will take 3 hours each. Next you’ll knit the sleeves probably another 4 hours each and lets set aside some time for finishing, approximately 2 hours. In total, that’s approximately 22 hours.

The REAL key to how long it takes to knit a cardigan is to actually sit down and knit it!

The sweater won’t knit itself by sitting on a shelf (even though I’ve wished for that to happen).