I sat next to a beginning knitter at knitting group last week. She was working on a baby blanket, graduating from simple stockinette, to a basket stitch. But although she knew how to knit and purl, she was off on her pattern and had at least an inch to unknit. In frustration, she ripped the whole thing out, even the inch and a half garter stitch border that was just fine. She was frustrated, maybe the blanket was too difficult for her, maybe she shouldn’t try to do a stitch pattern.
I told her I do a lot of unknitting. She expressed amazement. I wanted her to feel better, didn’t want her to give up on knitting, but I wasn’t exagerating. I do a lot of reknitting. I told her I frequently have to redo my starts. There’s something about getting started on a new piece or a new technique that requires me to knit, unknit and reknit several times before I get into the groove. I told her I make mistakes when I’m not focused on my knitting, that after our last knitting get together I went home and ripped out everything I did in group, two hours of knitting lost. Sometimes I’ll put a piece aside too long and not be able to pick it up again without a lot of mistakes. I make mistakes at the end of a piece, when I’m in a hurry to finish and start something new. I make mistakes when I’m trying to carry on a conversation, knit in the car, knit while watching television or listenning to an audio book. And I make mistakes when I’m trying too hard.
Sometimes I unknit because I lose track of where I am, sometimes I get sloppy and my tension is off, sometimes I’ll notice a split stitch several rows below and for some reason, especially if its lace, I can’t figure out how to drop down and fix it, so I unknit those rows instead.
I’ve learned not to fight it. I’ve learned to accept it as part of knitting, as what I need to do to get the results I want.
Often other knitters say when they find a mistake they just fudge it, no one will ever notice. But if I can see the mistake now, I’ll see it ever after. Better to fix it.
And that leads me to the Vine Vest I was knitting in Provence. I seamed it all up with the skills I learned in Margaret Fisher’s Perfect Seams class. The seams were beautiful. I added the edging. No problem. I put it on. Ugh! I ripped it all out and am knitting the yarn into a new February Lady Sweater. If I were a perfectionist, I would have soaked the kinks out of the yarn before reknitting.
I told her I do a lot of unknitting. She expressed amazement. I wanted her to feel better, didn’t want her to give up on knitting, but I wasn’t exagerating. I do a lot of reknitting. I told her I frequently have to redo my starts. There’s something about getting started on a new piece or a new technique that requires me to knit, unknit and reknit several times before I get into the groove. I told her I make mistakes when I’m not focused on my knitting, that after our last knitting get together I went home and ripped out everything I did in group, two hours of knitting lost. Sometimes I’ll put a piece aside too long and not be able to pick it up again without a lot of mistakes. I make mistakes at the end of a piece, when I’m in a hurry to finish and start something new. I make mistakes when I’m trying to carry on a conversation, knit in the car, knit while watching television or listenning to an audio book. And I make mistakes when I’m trying too hard.
Sometimes I unknit because I lose track of where I am, sometimes I get sloppy and my tension is off, sometimes I’ll notice a split stitch several rows below and for some reason, especially if its lace, I can’t figure out how to drop down and fix it, so I unknit those rows instead.
I’ve learned not to fight it. I’ve learned to accept it as part of knitting, as what I need to do to get the results I want.
Often other knitters say when they find a mistake they just fudge it, no one will ever notice. But if I can see the mistake now, I’ll see it ever after. Better to fix it.
And that leads me to the Vine Vest I was knitting in Provence. I seamed it all up with the skills I learned in Margaret Fisher’s Perfect Seams class. The seams were beautiful. I added the edging. No problem. I put it on. Ugh! I ripped it all out and am knitting the yarn into a new February Lady Sweater. If I were a perfectionist, I would have soaked the kinks out of the yarn before reknitting.
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1 comment:
I've been knitting for years and nearly everything I make requires a few false starts. I refer to it as getting more knitting value for my yarn dollar :-) The February Lady sweater is killing me right now. I just can't seem to get the lace started right.
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