Knitting the Progress Flag (and how to do it yourself)

One item I wished to introduce to my store this year was dice bags. I made a really nice and neat dice bag with the nonbinary flag that, as of writing this, I still need to take pictures of, but I wanted to offer as many flags as possible on them. So, for my first of the extra large dice bags, I went with a different flag: the progress flag.

There have been several iterations of rainbow pride flags with extra stripes designed to make them more inclusive of minorities within the queer community that have been ignored or shunned by the bigger groups of cis white gays. There's the Philly flag, which I will be offering in my store, that has a black and brown stripe on top as a nod to queer BIPOC. That one's pretty simple to knit, just like every other horizontal striped flag. Then there are the progress flags, with plain ROYGBV horizontal stripes and triangles on the side with extra stripes/flags. One version has the black and brown stripes and then blue, pink, and white "stripes" (the white is a triangle but it has the vibes of a stripe) to represent the trans community. The other has an intersex pride flag in the triangle to the left of the white stripe. I not only made the mistake of trying to knit the progress flag with its many colors and vertical-ish stripes, I naively chose to go with the second version. The one with a circle in it, where I would at times be needing to knit with 8 different yarns in a single row.

I've been working on it for weeks now, and I'm barely more than halfway done. I've finished the circle, fortunately, so I was able to cut the purple yarn loose (for now, until the last horizontal stripe), but I'm still on the green stripe. Not only is it a hassle to work with so much yarn at a time, but it's not exactly portable, so I've been having to only work on it when I can sit at my table at home. My winter break only ended a few days ago, so most of the time I've been free to do so, but it takes me so much more energy to sit in a chair and knit than it does to sit in my bed and knit, especially when that chair is a normal wooden chair rather than a comfy recliner or something. This means that not only do I have to take breaks from knitting this, I have to take breaks from knitting or doing anything productive at all. Whatever time I spend knitting this bag, I have to spend about the same amount of time lying in my bed doing absolutely nothing. It literally drains me more per time spent on it than going to classes or a wage job. I'll also have to do some extra sewing when I finish it, because I haven't consistently secured the edge of the triangle where it meets the back of the project where there are just stripes (I had planned on doing the triangle on both sides, but it was too much for me, and I had to redo the beginning anyway so I changed it to only be on the front) and it's kind of sliding down the yarn between rows of horizontal stripes. So that's some extra work I'll have to do for this bag, even when I'm finally done with the draining endeavor of knitting it.

I had been planning on listing this flag with the others on my store and simply charging extra for it because it's so much harder, but as I've kept going and realized just how much harder, I realized the only way I'd be willing to do this again is if I was paid hundreds of dollars for it (which is way more than I'd be comfortable charging for the bags normally). So instead, I won't list the progress flag as an option on the listing for pride flag dice bags, and I'm hoping I can sell this specific bag that I'll have already made for even a fraction of what it would be worth if I was paid for all of my time. Once I finish it, I'll be updating this post with information on how to buy it for anyone interested. If I can't sell it, at least that's a lesson learned.

If anyone's feeling brave, here's a pattern (ish) for how I knit it, in 60 rows with a minimum row length of x stitches. If you have longer rows (mine, for example, are 80 stitches), add the remainder at the end of the row. All stitches in mine were knit, but that can be changed, so I'll just put the number of stitches and color. This pattern assumes knitting in the round, so if you're knitting flat, make sure to reverse every other row. I'll start shortening colors once they've been used enough that it's clear what I mean. Note that the holes for cords are not included, this isn't the pattern for the dice bag

wpbbb = 3 white, 3 pink, 3 light blue, 3 brown, 3 black

Row 1: 3 brown, 3 black, remainder red

Row 2: 1 light blue, 3 brown, 3 black, remainder red

Row 3: 2 light blue, 3 brown, 3 black, remainder red

Row 4: 3 lb, 3 brown, 3 black, remainder red

Row 5: 1 pink, 3 lb, 3 brown, 3 black, remainder red

Row 6: 2 pink, 3 lb, 3 brown, 3 black, remainder red

Row 7: 3 pink, 3 lb, 3 brown, 3 black, remainder red

Row 8: 1 white, 2 pink, 2 lb, 2 brown, 2 black, remainder red

Row 9: 2 white, 3 pink, 3 lb, 3 brown, 3 black, remainder red

Row 10: wpbbb, remainder red

Row 11: 1 yellow, wpbbb, remainder orange

Row 12: 2 y, wpbbb, remainder orange

Row 13: 3 y, wpbbb, remainder orange

Row 14: 4 y, wpbbb, remainder orange

Row 15: 5 y, wpbbb, remainder orange

Row 16: 6 y, wpbbb, remainder orange

Row 17: 7 y, wpbbb, remainder orange

Row 18: 8 y, wpbbb, remainder orange

Row 19: 9 y, wpbbb, remainder orange

Row 20: 10 y, wpbbb, remainder orange

Row 21: 11 y, wpbbb, remainder yellow

Row 22: 12 y, wpbbb, remainder y

Row 23: 13 y: wpbbb, remainder y

Row 24: 7 y, 4 purple, 3 y, wpbbb, remainder y

Row 25: 5 y, 8 purple, 2 y, wpbbb, remainder y

Row 26: 4 y, 3 p, 4 y, 3 p, 2 y, wpbbb, remainder y

Row 27: 3 y, 3 p, 6 y, 3 p, 2 y, wpbbb, remainder y

Row 28: 3 y, 2 p, 8 y, 2 p, 3 y, wpbbb, remainder y

Row 29: 2 y, 2 p, 10 y, 2 p, 3 y, wpbbb, remainder y

Row 30: 2 y, 2 p, 10 y, 2 p, 4 y, wpbbb, remainder y

Row 31: repeat row 30 but remainder green

Row 32: repeat 29 but remainder green

Row 33: rp 28, remainder g

Row 34: rp 27, remainder g

Row 35: rp 26, remainder g

Row 36: rp 25, remainder g

Row 37: rp 24, remainder g

Row 38: rp 23, remainder g

Row 39: rp 22, remainder g

Row 40: rp 21, remainder g

Row 41: rp 20, remainder blue

Row 42: rp 19, remainder blue

Row 43: rp 18, rem blue

Row 44: rp 17, rem blue

Row 45: rp 16, rem blue

Row 46: rp 15, rem blue

Row 47: rp 14, rem blue

Row 48: rp 13, rem blue

Row 49: rp 12, rem blue

Row 50: rp 11, rem blue

Row 51: rp 10, rem purple

Row 52: rp 9, rem purple

Row 53: rp 8, rem purple

Row 54: rp 7, rem purple

Row 55: rp 6, rem purple

Row 56: rp 5, rem purple

Row 57: rp 4, rem purple

Row 58: rp 3, rem purple

Row 59: rp 2, rem purple

Row 60: rp 1, rem purple