I finally gave in: I frogged my 10 inches worth of Branching Out. I realized, in posting the other day, that I hadn’t been knitting anything, and that I’d been actually dreading working on that particular piece. I know why: it requires slavish attention to a pattern, which is detailed enough not to be able to stick in my mind. So, I couldn’t memorize it (or I was unwilling to put in the hours to do so), and it just wasn’t pretty enough to keep me at it.
So, I ripped it back, I frogged it, I tore it out. And I’m knitting this morning, because I realized that we’ve a friend who’s due this week & I haven’t knit anything for the child (boy), and that I have an orange hat for my sister-in-law’s boy (due in June), but that he probably needs some socks, especially since I have miles of the same orange yarn. So, a blue hat for the boy due this week, and then on to orange socks.
It feels nice, to have gotten rid of a piece which was keeping me from knitting. Silly, I know, but I’d worked myself into a corner: I was going to do that pattern, darn it … but, really, who cares? I know that I can follow a pattern … so who am I proving things to? It’s sad that it’s taken me so long to think through this, but there it is.
Now, on to the blue hat, and all of the possibilities of not following any pattern, but relying on intuition and whim and whimsy.
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This is just the inspiration I needed! Give up on stuff that is just sitting there that I feel I “have” to do (just because I started it)…and trade it in for something I really “want” to do…makes sense to me! LOL Seriously it really feels like I just lost a ton off my shoulders!!
I feel that same weight leaving me, as I’m knitting a hat now & am going to cast on another, just because I can. Oh, the joys of letting go of what had become “work!”
A hat that is giving you trouble should be destroyed, and that’s what I did, and I don’t blame you for doing it. I think one of the most common things I used to do, as davimack knows, is to rip out almost everything I worked on, so I am ok with it, it is kind of fun watching all that trouble disappear.
I’m doing a post-grad in Early Childhood Studies – I am a teacher in nursery so this is an extra qualification.
Re the LaTeX – my husband is a computer scientist, so when I’m intimidated I just call on him;0)
India