A Lesson in Crafting Humility: FO Friday

If you aren't interested in humility or knitting, look away and talk amongst yourselves.

The lotus blossom.
A symbol of birth and wisdom.

I shoulda' known.

I am not a beginning knitter.
I can, in fact, knit a pretty complicated pattern.
Color changes, no problem.
Cables, hey, just watch me.
Even lace patterns.
Ok, maybe not so much. lol.

But for everything else ... watch me go!
I, am a fearless knitter.

I thought.

Until... Padma.

A beautiful, symbolic even, hat pattern.
Padma - the lotus.
Wisdom and divine purity.
Unfolding petals of expanding wisdom.
Immediately I wanted to knit it.
It was everything I looked for in a pattern - challenge, coloring, slowly-evolving pattern, and even, dare I say, chartwork.

I even had a special recipient in mind.
I chose yarn from my stash, an alpaca that I had been using faithfully and had always performed for me. The colors were perfect - a deep inky black to accentuate the soft blue/gray/purpley color for the blossom design.

And I started.
Did I check gauge? Kinda.
Since it was a stash yarn, you know how that goes. I switched up the needle size, reknit a swatch and the stitch count width matched.
Voila.

I was on the road.
I was confident, knowing.
And secretly, cocky.

Then life took over.
Put out a fire or two, and it was back to knitting again.

Ok first off, a word to the wise: when reprinting knitting charts, if there are important border lines in contrasting color, don't shortcut and rely on your memory, printing it in black and white.

Second, using page markers on a chart is good, just make sure if life intervenes, and you are picking up and putting down a chart a lot, they have good stick-em.

Third, do not, I repeat, do not, get all "I am king of the WORLD" on your knitting.


I found out.
I am not, in fact, all "king of the WORLD."


Simply, I did not, in fact, respect the knitting.
And I, in fact, did NOT check gauge as to ROW measurements.
Heck, it was a HAT.
I am an AARP card-carrying, midlife adult, for gosh sake.
I could TELL when to start my decreases.


Ah, and that, dear knitting readers, is the rub.


With a detailed pattern, decreasing is not just cut out a few rows and that is that.
I found that out - 7 times lol.


I will say I persisted. After rip out 3, I was determined.
After rip-out 5, I was dogged.
After rip-out 6 I was deadly determined.


And I persisted.
I got wisdom, alright.
I modified the pattern, shortened the crown, and finished the damn hat.
Last week.

It was a Christmas 2010 present lol.


3 words. (which can also be attributed to life)

Respect the process.

udaipurtimes.com

Have a good one. :)