Hey there crafters,
I just finished a HUGE blanket I was knitting for my son yesterday night. For months, it was on the needles, with affordable yarns I bought at Joann's before it shut its doors. Night after night, I was clicking my needles away for hours at a time, eager to get this s*cker off my needles, and yet still wrapping every stitch with love.
Well, it finally happened. I bound off yesterday, wove in the ends, and finally, my WIP became my son's possession.
I was so proud: the blanket is so big it wraps the sides of his bed. I had to reorder yarn online because I ran out, and then I used as much of it as I could, adding an extra stripe repeat to avoid having too much leftover yarn. It would probably fit a king-sized bed. It's so heavy, it probably weighs 10+ lbs.
It's an awesome blanket.
I was so proud of myself. And then, as I was tucking him in bed, he asked the dreaded question.
"Hey mom, what's this?" he asked.
I peeked at the blanket in a black stripe section. And there, glaring back at me, as obvious as a single dark cloud on a sunny day, lay a gap in the fabric.
Gasp.
OMG!!! What happened?
Did I drop a stitch? Oh, the horror if I had. But no. I didn't drop a stitch. I kept looking at it, trying to figure it out, and then I did.
It turns out I did an involuntary yarn over. About 15% into the blanket, I did an involuntary yarn over, which I carried for over one hundred more rows, then bound off...
This s*cker wasn't gonna be removed, over my dead body. It was gonna stay there for eternity.
A part of me was crushed. How dare I make an extra yarn over without noticing!?! Am I not supposed to be an advanced knitter? How can I make such a beginner mistake!?!
I felt ashamed.
And I could tell my son was wondering how he was supposed to react to this. Should he be mad I made ONE mistake on his blanket? Should he just move on? How was I going to react when it's HIS turn to make a mistake?
There lay a lifelong lesson to learn.
--
A friend of mine had sent me a video where they shared their antidotes to perfectionism, and it felt serendipitous.
So I pulled from their lesson. And I let go of my shame for making ONE mistake in a blanket that incorporated tens of thousands of stitches.
So I told my son: "Well, here's the proof that it's handmade! I put love in every stitch, and it didn't feel enough, so I added an extra stitch that I carried for hundreds of rows just to be sure."
He smiled, shrugged, moved on, and wrapped himself in the blanket.
When I woke him up the next morning, he was still wrapped up in his new blanket. And that's the best reward for my efforts I could've ever hoped for.
So here's the lesson:
I might be good at knitting and crafting. I might even be great at it (sometimes). But I'm not perfect. Everybody makes mistakes, and it's not the end of the world because we're all works in progress. We're not perfect. No one is perfect. We're all a WIP!
But that's not a reason to feel ashamed or quit.
I'm admitting that I'm not perfect. So let's just move on with our day and keep going.
Knit on, my friends!
*Here is the blanket, folded 8+ times over, because it would never fit my camera frame.