Home

One of the most clear-cut “lessons” (for lack of a better word - anyone have a better word?) I’ve learned from knitting has been persistence. A lack of patience, fear of failure, and simple boredom can all lead to me giving up on a project at the first sign of trouble. Frankly, I can usually get by pretty easily without having to work too hard at things. I may not always excel, but I can get by. Because of this, I never HAD to be persistent at anything.

So unlike projects I procrastinate doing because I’m afraid of being bad at them, there are things that I’m happy to start, because at least at the beginning, I don’t have major expectations for myself. I go along my merry way, glueing that model spaceship together (or whatever), until, um, I mess up. I glued the wing to the bottom of the fuselage or something. I’ve messed up bad enough that I’ll have to start over, or trash the whole thing, or at the very least spend hours fixing it while swearing to myself.

You can guess what happens next. Yeah, nothing. I give up, and tell myself “Oh, it’s totally not worth it, What am I going to do with a model spaceship, anyway?” or “This is BO-RING!,” or, “I just don’t want to deal with all these fiddle-y little details like ‘wings.’”

However, after a couple of false starts when I tossed a project into the corner in disgust after making a mistake, knitting has been different for me. I actually *fix* mistakes! I will undo rows and rows of knitting just to make something right, even when no one else will even notice! I occasionally make swatches, (one of the most boring and frustrating aspects of knitting)! I am persistent, I finish projects, I keep working even when something is hard and it may never turn out right! I have learned the beauty of persistence and patience, ladies! (And gentleman, if you’re out there). Yay!

Of course, translating that to other aspects of my life is yet another step, it doesn’t necessarily automatically happen. But I do see my attitude changing in small ways. So that’s a good thing.

I’d love to hear if you’ve had similar experiences, or feel like you’ve learned something else from your knitting adventures…

———

Thanks so much to those who left nice comments about my pink sweater. It’s definitely one of my favorite FO’s so far.

In other news, The Kitchener Bitch was having a little contest over at the Vintage Knit-Along she hosts. She was offering prizes in different categories, and she picked my picture to win for the “Best Pic from a Vintage Pattern”! So I won three skeins of some lovely yarn:

Thanks, Kitchener Bitch! Now, this yarn I would have never bought myself, because I am not a “sock knitter,” and really don’t have anything else I could use it for. However, it was so soft and lovely, I wanted to make something with it, d*mnit! And I remembered my dad saying something about wanting me to knit him some socks. So… drumroll, please:

My first (finished) sock, ever!! The pic is in B&W because I’m adding a couple of details to it - it’s not actually finished, yet. Man, I never thought I would be this excited about a sock.

For those of you who’ve made it to the end of this post, congratulations! I’m having a little contest of my own. There is a yarn prize in store for the first person who emails me with the name of the sketch comedy TV show from which I got the title of this post (Placate, Posture, Pomp and Circumstance). I’m prepared to give hints if no one gets the answer right away. You can use the contact form on this website to send me an email. Good luck!

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…

———

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!