sherriknits

Ok, how many people do I tell to knit to the end of the row before laying down their project?  Do I take my own advice?  Hmmmm…..

 This is a reason why it’s not wise:

This poor project has been riding around in my purse for about a week.  I dig through my purse, I take the knitting out and put it back in.  I dig some more.  It may have been feeling neglected so look what happened.

And then notice the weird broken piece just standing up waving for attention.

This baby is headed for the frog pond. 

And I do have some proof of knitting that is happening around here.

Pedicure socks.  I actually am trying these out to be used more like bed socks because I cannot stand my toes closed in at night and I know others who are the same.   It’s been kind of a fun knit although I am tired of stripes.

I do want to thank those of you who emailed or commented on the assessment today.  It went well.  It usually does, his case manager is awesome and makes it feel better.  I’m thankful for good people on our team!

Next week we get to go to a foot casting clinic because he is going to end up in orthotics.   Oh, the joys.

:)  Life is actually good.

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I managed to get the first square knit without any more problems.  It’s funny what happens when you decide you will do it.  I still wonder what it would be like, though, to just start knitting a pattern and not do the obligatory frogging 3 times before it just works.

I had a horrible night’s sleep last night, so I did the rare thing and stayed home from church in a quiet house.  I got through the hearts in no time.

If you plan to knit this, please understand the pattern is not difficult if you pay attention to what you are doing.  The problem was more with me.

Ready to start the outer edge:

This was taken without a flash so the yarn is really dark. 

The last 4 rounds, you switch from size 5 to size 6 needles and the edges seem really ripply.  This is after I kind of steamed them because I don’t want to block until I get the rest of the block done.

And here is a close-up of the hearts.

I do want to say that in questioning myself as a knitter last night…it wasn’t about comparing myself to other knitters.  It was more wrestling with letting my frustration to cause me to give up.  It felt good to push on through and I find it interesting sometimes to watch how I think out the process.

So now, I am not sure if I’ll start another square that uses the same color or just wait until I get the reds and finish this square first.

It’s pouring down rain today and the family is enjoying being warm and cozy indoors.  I hope you’re having a pleasant day!

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Does this sound convincing?  I’ll try again.

i.AM.a.knitter

I really had a struggle with myself this evening.  Yesterday, as I said, I started the first square of The Great American Afghan.  I thought it looked a little wonky but I convinced myself to not make this a stressful project by letting myself do the perfectionist thing.  However, I still don’t like sloppy.

Today I had so many interruptions and I watched Lauri pass me up even though she started hers today.  That was not a big deal because I was busy and I won’t make this a contest.  (for myself)  I also heard from the Diplady that she had finished the inner part of the square and was doing the outer edge. 

My struggle didn’t come from these two knitters, it was my own frustration at myself.  When I got home tonight, I was finishing the second heart which made the inner part 2/3 done.  It became apparent to me that I had skipped a row on the first heart and that was why everything looked odd.  I decided to do the easy thing and rip back to that (after a little struggle with myself).  After attempting to fix it several times, I was thinking about the first row that I fudged a little bit on (and really, it was no big deal because there is a little bit of stitching over the top of that row), but I just wasn’t happy with it, so before I knew it, I had this:

Now, this has become an all too common sight for me.  At first I kind of laughed and then I started to struggle with whether I really am a knitter.  I know that I am capable of doing things, but I think my tendency is to not pay attention to what I am doing.  Once I start making mistakes, I start to lose confidence.

I really feel like I hit a crossroad at this point.  Am I going to continue or do I just face the fact that I am wasting my time.

Suddenly, something started rising up in me.  Am I going to let this defeat me, or am I going to press through and become the knitter I want to be?  This afghan is a great opportunity for learning many new techniques ~ but MUCH more than that, I had to ask myself if I was going to choose to be a quitter or was I going to reach  for an opportunity to improve. I have learned that in many ways, knitting parallels my life.  Will I choose to push through the hard things, the hurts, the struggles, the things I want to see myself do better, or will I just choose to accept defeat and think I am who I am and I can not change it. 

I choose to fight the fight. I will learn the discipline of working with care and I will not make it a legalistic venture by putting unnecessary expectation on myself.  I am human.  I love talking to people while I knit and sometimes this causes me to make mistakes…but I do know I am capable of tackling difficult projects and doing well at them.  All I need to do is do my best.

That said, here is my second attempt:

The lighting is never great at night, but at this point, I need a record of where I made it back to.  I am much happier with it because I found that by missing the row on the first one caused everything to be backwards and there was another mistake I had made that was a simple thing to correct once I actually *read* the pattern.  And this one just knit back up quickly.

I do have a few more things to show.

I have no idea how to get a good photo of a scarf.  The color showed up better in an earlier post but I just can’t get a better look at it.  I have worn it 2 days in a row and I who do not enjoy wearing scarves really like this one and don’t want to take it off.

I knit a very few rows on the Fly*dyed Ruby Redmond sock that I believe will be a Coriolis at this point.  It depends on how the yarn behaves.  I had it with me at Barnes and Noble last night and knit while I read. 

This is the whirlpool toe and I like what it is doing to the yarn.

I finally remembered to get a picture of our Saturday sky.

Rain.

Have a great weekend!  I’m going to go look at Ravelry before I get myself off to bed.

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