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My friend and I recently had a conversation about procrastination, and the gigantic role it plays in both of our lives. Unfortunately. Of course I’ve read books specifically about this nasty little habit (another great way to procrastinate doing something is to read self-help books about what you should be doing). One of these books (called, aptly, “Procrastination”) explained something that I’m sure I’ve always known in some way for a long time: one reason some people procrastinate is because they are perfectionists. This absolutely applies to me.

Now, contrary to what some of you might think, a perfectionist is *not* necessarily someone who does everything perfectly, or is “anal” about how everything in their lives are arranged. Actually someone who is a perfectionist (like me), is afraid to start many things. She is reluctant to reach out for the things she sincerely wants for herself. Because she might be unsuccessful. And so she puts it off. After all, if you never start a project, it’s impossible to fail.

Since I put things off, and avoid reaching for the things I really want to achieve, I haven’t had a lot of experience pushing myself past novice-hood into a greater understanding and skill level in any particular area. School and work don’t count, because those are things I *have* to do for one reason or another. I’m talking about pushing myself when no one else cares if I continue or not.

This is where knitting comes in. See, the key part of this story is, knitting was never important to me. It wasn’t any kind of life goal of mine to be a successful knitter, and I certainly didn’t identify my abilities as a knitter with any kind of self-worth. Therefore, I was able to keep trying. I didn’t give up, I didn’t procrastinate. It just didn’t matter to me one way or another. If I didn’t feel like knitting one day, it wasn’t because I was avoiding it.

Of course, none of this was anything I thought about consciously. It’s only in retrospect that I realize what was happening. And it is in retrospect that I realize how much I’ve learned through this process. (Like, life-lessons-learned, not three-needle-bind-off-learned. I still don’t know how to do an I-cord. That’s not the point.) The point is, there are life-skills I’ve gained that can actually translate to more things than just knitting. Cool, huh?!

The reason I think it’s relevant to talk about these little bits of understanding here is that, even though they are “life-skills” (or whatever), they are still important skills to have for the task of knitting. And practicing them make knitting even more enjoyable. I’m talking about things like patience, persistence… and others that I won’t get into yet. These are things I’ve been thinking about for a while, especially since I started this blog and put “knitting” at the forefront of my mind for an hour or two when I do a post. Maybe this doesn’t even make sense to anyone else, but hopefully it will as I talk about more specific aspects of it in future posts…

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On to the fun part:

The sleeve is cuter than I even thought it would be. I’m a big fan of 3/4 length sleeves, although these are even a tad shorter than that. Only one more sleeve to go! I bet you thought this would be done by now. I mean, Sharon is *finished* with one side of Season of DWL already, and started the second side!!! (It looks FABULOUS, by the way.) And it has taken me many days/weeks to do one little sleeve. Hee hee. I told you I haven’t been knitting much…

You may not be able to tell from the picture, but I actually didn’t finish this top. I decided I really didn’t like it after putting the other ruffles on. It was good practice, though, and now I know how to do the ruffle thing. I’m going to start on a shirt, which may be similar in some ways, but I’m going to change things about it. I have tons of the black jersey material to play/practice with, yay!

And once I get something going that I like, I’ll plan out some hand-embroidery to add to it. I got lots of thread - all different colors. Again, yay!

Since I’ve been dragging a little in the knitting department, I felt like I needed a break. And since I haven’t used my sewing machine all that much (except to stitch up the Ursula Bag), I thought I would see if I could make somethin’.

This is a shirt. It has a ruffle in the front. I think it will have more ruffles, (around the neck and arms). I don’t think it will have sleeves. It will most likely have some kind of embroidery on it, but that surprise I will save for later. There were a few things running through my mind as I worked on this shirt at 1:00 in the morning:

1. Sewing is so much faster than knitting! I could have a whole top done in just a few hours. This is like, way better - I may never knit again.

2. Sewing with jersey fabric is such a bitch. D*mn! It got stuck in the machine again. I hate sewing, I’m never doing it again in my life.

3. Maybe this whole thing would have been easier if I had measured and made some sort of pattern first. Or made more of an attempt to cut straight lines in the fabric. I hear my Home Ec. teacher, Mrs. Halllmark, yelling at me in my head. OK, she never really yelled, she was actually very nice. She was just a stickler for details, and it made her a great teacher. I just don’t have the patience right now to do things like, you know, measuring, pinning, buying scissors that aren’t blunt or sticky from cutting tape. Yes, I know, those aren’t exactly minute details. They’re actually kind of basic and important butwhatevershutupI’mnotgoingtothinkaboutitI’mjustdoingit.

4. Dude. My ruffle actually turned out pretty cool. I’m shocked and flabbergasted. Amazed. Suprised. Incredulous. My sewing machine must be magic, because logically there is no way this shirt should actually look good right now. Well, good job, little magic sewing machine. I’ll keep feeding you special magic beans or whatever, and you keep sewing those straight lines.

By the way, the shirt is black - just lightened up in the pics so you can see it and stuff.

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Next time… The Return of the Knitting

Since it’s Mother’s Day weekend, I thought I’d share a gift my mom gave me when she was here visiting. I have her to thank for my interest in things crafty - she helped me learn to sew when I was younger, and her mom taught me to crochet. Nowadays, mum is a fantastic quilter - this is my favorite one she’s given me so far. It’s so quilty! (I’m trying to convince her to do a quilting website to show off the rest of her creations…)

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Another piece of the mystery gift in progress. I was knitting this on the train yesterday, leaning against the doors, when a man approached me with the question “How ca’ you sew a sweater standing up when it’s summer?” I honestly didn’t know how to respond to that, so I didn’t. Because he was drunk, he didn’t seem to mind and a moment later became occupied with falling on another passenger.

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For some more spring enjoyment - a real-life money tree! Let’s see if it works. This is the first thing I’ve really tried to keep alive (besides my cats and sea monkeys, of course). One week and counting - so far so good.

First things first… these stripes made for the steek stitches are quite pleasing in and of themselves, aren’t they? There is just something so symmetrical, and well, straight about them. It almost makes me want to knit a sweater that incorporates the stripes into the design itself. (Almost.)

That being said, the shape of the actual sweater before the steeks are cut is quite ugly. I got a little tired of looking at it, and hurried along so I could finish and just cut the darn thing. Not to mention the fact that I wanted to try it on.

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So cut I did. But not before I “secured” my steeks with crochet stitches. Oh, the cutting of the steeks did happen at 2:00 in the morning, of course, but it was every bit as pleasing as I thought it would be. Definitely the highlight of making this sweater.

Now, I put the word “secured” in quotation marks because these steeks were most definitely not “secure.” As I halfway suspected when I started this sweater, the silk in the green yarn made it too slippery to, you know, stick, and the little steeks started unravelling before my eyes as I picked up stitches for the edging.

Ahem. So, at least I tried the crocheted steeks, and I’m not sorry I did. Next time I’ll try it on yarn a little more suitable. Until then, big kiss to my lovely sewing machine…

Stay tuned for the finished product. (I leave you in suspense as to whether it fits.)

Forgive me, I know this doesn’t have anything to do with knitting, but I’m very excited about my new sewing machine. I haven’t sewn in (many!) years, but I’m sure it’ll be as easy as falling off a bike. I even got a simple pattern-designing book that seems like it will go far in helping me figure out how to make things fit and look the way I want them to. After I get started with it, I might blog a little about my sewing projects on another part of this site for anyone who likes that sort of thing. I have some ideas for clothes I want to make, but I have to practice sewing in a straight line for a little while first…