Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Pondering Production

More ponder provoking from Never Not Knitting! Page-A-Day Calendar, by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee also known as Yarn Harlot.

"Knitting has been called "the new yoga" by a lot of people (most of them non knitters), who think that we all knit because of the tranquil, meditative quality of it. They imagine us peacefully stitching, lulled by the perfect stitches slipping repeatedly and flawlessly off the needles. Sure, knitting has its Zen-like moments but these people obviously aren't aware of what follows these moments, hen you look down and realize that while you have finally reached that calm and gentle place...
you've screwed the whole thing up."



Let me share a couple scenarios:
This charming friendship quilt pictured above. I had sewn together a pretty good chunk of my pieces while my mom was out and was very excited to show her what I had done...then she came home and realized with her skillful eye (or whatever) that none of my points matched up. In fact they were very off. She pointed out a place that offered directions as to why (yes, I KNOW you're supposed to read all the directions, but I was on a roll okay?) it didn't work. She very kindly helped me rip stitches out and fix the mistake but my "calm and gentle pace" was gone.

Trust me there are many more stories with this quilt, but I'll take my next from knitting:

This sweater has been a beast for more than one reason, but the main is that each and every part of it has been done twice. The yoke has been done twice because I didn't increase enough or in the right places, the sleeves were redone because I realized I'd like them better if they had more breathing/growing room, and the body was redone because after I the whole section refinished, I realized I had included a whole skein of the wrong dye lot. UGH! BUT...it's done now, and whether I'm allergic or not, I love it!

What about you? Do you have any moments like that?

2 comments:

Ben and Alli said...

Yup! Reached that zen moment this weekend only to look down and realize that I was dropping stitches on the baby blanket I'm working on. Doesn't feel very relaxing when you have to rip a few rows out!

Tanya said...

Hahaha...Have I ever!!! I started my first sock today and I was just zipping along, reaching quite the gentle, steady pace and then all of a sudden, I pulled too hard on my stupid dpn (I call IT stupid, because it couldn't possibly have been my fault!) and the dumb thing slipped right out of all the 32 stitches that were on it...I began again, but it was with more frustration than zen...ah well...