Regarding unraveling:
The thing is, while I was pretty angry about it in the moment, I really didn’t mind unraveling. If the yarn or the pattern aren’t living up to their potential they deserve a second chance. It is far too easy to get overly attached to product of the creative process.
In most aspects of how I live my life, I’m not very zen at all (someone reading this is laughing coffee out their nose right now). I aspire to be more so, and I think that knitting helps… sort of… Anyway, someone else has already written more then ever needed to be said about the relationship between knitting and zen practice so I’ll skip all that and leave the words of wisdom to His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama
“When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.”
“Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.”
“Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.”
“Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.”
Aah…just what I needed to read this morning. These are beautiful words.
I ripped out two sleeves on a cardigan this weekend. I wasn’t terribly upset, it needed to happen, but it was frustrating. It did me good to read about you having to rip out a sport-weight sweater…I wasn’t alone!
I sympathize! I find I’m okay at letting go of the project and unraveling without regret, but I’m not so good at letting go of the memory enough to want to use the yarn again. I have a sweater that I made and never worse, and I’m giving it away rather than unraveling it and seeing that yarn in the skein again. It’s strange to feel both unattached and too attached at the same time!
I’ve done that too! I have several sweaters I’ve never worn or worn once, that I’m not sure what to do with, there isn’t anything wrong with them, I just don’t wear them.
And then there is the big tub in the basement that the Mister refers to as ‘the graveyard of forgotten knitting’… But we won’t speak of that…
*never worn
Now there’s coffee all over my desk! ;P Kidding…
Yes, I was talking to you!
yup- when i read your post ‘project fail’ i thought to myself “that’s why she’s a pro.”