The cardigan was conceived in anxiety, so no wonder it came out looking like that. I started knitting in lockdown, because keeping my hands occupied made it harder to refresh news apps. At some point over the last year, as Covid worries began to retreat, knitting hitched itself to climate-based worries instead. I’m not saying it’s rational, but hear me out: my brain has been dabbling with “doomsday prepper” for its 2022 theme, and I reasoned with it that knitting was an essential skill for a rapidly changing world. If societal collapse came in the near future, wouldn’t it be handy to be able to make your own clothes? Yes, it would be more handy to learn combat skills or which mushrooms aren’t going to kill you, but if any fellow survivors of the end times needed a basic raglan jumper then, at last, I could be useful. I started small. I knitted half a scarf and then all of a tea cosy that was too big for the teapot, but made a funny hat for one photograph. Then I saw a picture of Harry Styles wearing a JW Anderson cardigan, two years after everyone else saw it on TikTok because I’m 40 and find TikTok exhausting, and I thought, I’m ready. I found a pattern, bought the wool, borrowed some needles. I spent months making panels and panels of brightly coloured knitted squares that I would eventually, one day, in a moment of great personal achievement, sew together, creating a grungy cloak of homemade smugness. The bad omens were there, if I had paid attention. The squares were turning out to be rectangles. I was getting through wool at a surprising rate. I hadn’t bothered reading the first page of the instructions very carefully, or at all, because I didn’t know what a gauge was and I was keen to get started on the practical business of being a world-class knitter of clothes. As each panel came together, I did wonder if it was going to be a bit big, but nevertheless persisted. After months of work, I was ready to assemble. The pattern and the YouTube video said it was supposed to look a bit scruffy. I began sewing, convinced that I’d nailed it. With each finished seam, the cardigan grew. Hmm, I thought. Well, it is supposed to be slouchy. It grew some more. It started to feel heavy. Hmm, I thought. Well, it is supposed to be cosy. I dreaded trying it on. Maybe you can’t just knit a whole cardigan with only half a scarf’s worth of experience? Here I am in the finished cardigan. I say finished; this is actually the second time I have finished it, having surgically removed four whole panels, or 12 rectangle-squares, or several weeks of bad knitting. What first transpired had sleeves that could each be worn as a baggy dress. A baggy dress that would have been lighter if I had made it out of chainmail. I have it on my phone next to a screenshot of Styles wearing the very nice, extremely elegant, incredibly well-crafted JW Anderson cardigan, and sometimes, for a laugh, I flick between the two. It’s like when people try to copy that cake that looks like a hedgehog, and end up with a chocolate hell-demon that will haunt your child’s dreams. But I am very fond of this misshapen, malformed waste of wool and time. I learned so much from making a mess. I still knit, despite the evidence suggesting that I should abandon all hope. I read patterns now, from start to finish, before I begin. I knit a swatch. I check that the yarn is the right size; turns out that adding the word “super” to “chunky” means it’s bigger, not just better. I’ve made three jumpers since: one with arms too long for Mr Tickle, but two others that fit human bodies. I learned that the making something from scratch leaves a good feeling. And if it all goes tits up, and a new ice age is imminent, then I’ve got just the thing to keep you warm. Rebecca Nicholson is a columnist for the Observer and the Guardian