When Your Knitting Reminds You to Slow Down
Lessons imparted from fiber
Recently I’ve been on a hat kick – in case you haven’t seen the latest knitting patterns that I’ve published. And while knitting one hat, I’ll come up with a pattern for two more hats. I literally can’t make them fast enough.
Even jotting them down doesn’t totally solve the problem. I’m literally too excited to finish the hat I have on my needles, and want to start another one immediately. Then there are the ideas floating around for a sweater or two and I still have one that I need to finish. Ugh sleeves. I’m terribly impatient when it comes to knitting sleeves, and this sweater I’ve designed to have a knitted braid down them which takes longer.
So to the point of this post: I am 2/3 of the way through test knitting a pattern I just wrote for a hat for Chris, right now this is tentatively called the chevron hat (but not wedded to the name). As I’m dreaming up another hat pattern, I mess up one of the cables and fail to notice…until about 10 rows and another cable later.
I just sat there for a few minutes looking at it, trying to figure out what the easiest fix would be. Do I frog (unravel) a solid 10 rows and fix it? Or can I just take the six stitches involved down a few rows and fix it?
The fact that there was another repeat of the cable involved made it hard, so I compromised and frogged about 5 rows to get past the cable repeat row, and to then be able to take the six stitches down and fix the problem cable.
Life always finds creative ways to teach you a lesson
In this case, it was a big reminder to have patience. I could wish my life away if I wasn’t careful. Its not necessarily a bad thing, I just get excited and look forward to the next thing. There is definitely a downside though, and that is a failure to be present in the moment. Each hat, or moment in life has something to teach us and if we aren’t careful, we’ll miss it. We’ll miss the little joys that are there just waiting for us. So thank you to my big brother RJ and this hat that I am knitting him for reminding me to slow down and enjoy every stitch, and the process of making something, much like the larger, longer journey that is life.
