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Knit one, purl two

How knitting taught me to let go

By Erica PsaltisPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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Knit one, purl two
Photo by rocknwool on Unsplash

Knitting is crafting for the analytical and structured mind.

There are rules to knitting. Patterns to follow. Drop a stitch or knit in front instead of in back, and your pattern is altered. For perfectionists, this type of responsibility is perfect.

However, other than the weight of the yarn a pattern calls for, color creativity is in the hands of the creator. Your color colors? Black and white? Neons? Go for it.

Some knitters can look at a pattern and see the rhythm to it, like the John Nashes of fiber work.
Some knitters can look at a pattern and see the architecture, the Frank Lloyd Wrights. Some look over the entire pattern before they start, knit a 4”x4” sample to ensure the gauge, the Steve Jobses of knitting. And some throw themselves into the project with abandon, errors be damned.

I’m one of those last ones. I just jump in. I don’t knit a sample swatch. I don’t read the whole pattern through, because I am not able to visualize the final piece. When i first started knitting, my devil-may-care attitude was a constant source of frustration, because it led to errors I didn’t know how to fix. I did a lot of ripping out rows early on, making piles of yarn that resembled kinked ramen noodles.

But as time has gone on, and I’ve learned more, these errors became opportunities for technique learning. Dropped stitches. Twisted stitches. Laddering down. My inevitable beginners mistakes taught me to move forward in my knitting. I learned to use stitch markers to prevent accidentally adding stitches. I learned to lace knit. I made a hat for my friends baby. And then a bolero for myself. A sweater for my brother, and another for my niece. I learned that I hate double pointed needles, and prefer circular needles.

When I started my knitting journey, I put a lot of demand on myself to be perfect - not only in my new hobby, but also in my life. I was in my late 20s, and despite the obvious jokes about being the oldest 27-year-old my boyfriend knew, I found the new craft challenging and fun. Progress was measurable, and seeing inches looped off my needles was satisfying. I demanded a high level of production, and being able to see progress was important to me. Early on, my measure of success was based on quantity.

As I got more comfortable, knitting simultaneously allowed me to enjoy some perfectionism, but also allowed me to recognize that most errors are not noticeable by anyone but me. It was a groundbreaking revelation - striving for perfection is an okay pursuit, but most people are not going to notice your little hiccups. Sure, if you’re working on a lace pattern and drop some stitches, it’s hard to recover from a mistake like that without starting over. But if you drop a stitch in a scarf and end up making a new stitch a couple rows later to even the stitch count out, no one is going to notice. It’s not a big deal. And in fact in another couple rows, YOU won’t notice it.

That being said, there is something to be said for the satisfaction of a perfectly knitted lace shawl, with no errors. A work with that many yarn-over/knit-two-together combinations is ripe for miscounts and other errors. So while I can appreciate that it’s not all about doing something perfectly all the time, getting those perfect pieces in every once in a while can be good for the recovering-perfectionist’s soul.

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