Knitting, Part Two

Now, that's not to say that my learning to knit process has been seamless (pun not intended as seams are generally more sewing-ish but still.)  I've had some... er.. moments of argh, for sure.

Other than the face cloth that I made that is full of holes, I also am still unable to really fix the mistakes I make.  So other than stopping working on the project, packing it up and driving over to Mom and Dad's, I have, perhaps more than once, un-done a few row's worth of work because I can't figure out what seems totally easy for my Mom (and other experienced knitters) to fix.

I have also accidentally sat on my work, thereby pulling the needle completely out of the row.  I have managed to knit the tail end of the wool INTO the work (it's... really not supposed to be knitted in, ahem) and I have cried tears of frustration at casting off (ending a piece.)

I also seem to have still a little bit of trouble starting a piece, and haven't remembered to write down the needle sizes I used on certain pieces which leads to me ball park guessing how many thingamies to cast on for a facecloth and then getting annoyed when the second row ends up being four hundred times longer than the cast on row.

And, yes, I know that that all was maybe garbldygook to anyone who's never knitted before, but that's another funny thing I discovered.  Knitters... come out of the woodwork.

For example, I brought in a piece to work, to give to someone, and all of a sudden found out that there are five, ten other people at work who knit!  It's like a secret, awesome club!

Or, when I was on the ferry over the holidays and brought a scarf (because yes, I'm still just working on the simplest of things!) out to work on and a nice lady turned around to ask me what I was working on and showed me the lovely scarf she was working on too.

It's cool.

I mean, not that it makes me perfect or anything.  I did accidentally steal something from the wool shop.

*gulp*

See, I went in to match some embroidery thread I needed to finish a cross stitch I'd started maybe a decade ago and just recently fished out again, in my "oooh I forgot it's fun to make stuff" phase.

So I brought the piece to match the thread and then grabbed a couple of similar colours to compare.  When I found the one I wanted, I put away my piece and purchased the thread, along with some awesome wool.

I nearly died when I got home and saw that I'd accidentally slipped one of the other threads into my bag when I put my piece away.  OH NO!

So instead of marching back and handing it over to them, I marched back to the store, slunk around and casually put it back.  I was so scared they'd think I'd stolen it on purpose and didn't want to explain to them that I'd only accidentally stolen it and was now returning it I'm SO SORRY! so I secretly returned the thing they probably never knew was missing in the first place.

And I still feel guilty about it!

But yeah, I've had a few glitches, and I still make a mistake every time I make something, but there seems to be a general philosophy with those who knit, or at least those I know who knit.  And that is that life is imperfect, and when you make something, it should also have an imperfection in it, to show it reflects the reality of life.

My Mom told me that she heard that Persian rug makers purposely make a flaw in each of their rugs just for this reason.

I don't purposely make them, but I do let one mistake go when I do make it, and tell myself it's just like life.  Flawed but still good.