I ripped my knitting project out last week. Again. For about the 10th time. Since last August I have been trying to make a lacy vest. It is one of Ilga Leja’s patterns. I have known Ilga for years – she has been a member of St. John’s United Church for years and was active in the women’s spirituality group there, a fellow choir member, attended numerous bible studies, and was a colleague in the Atlantic Jubilee Program in Spiritual Guidance at Tatamagouche Centre in 2007.
She is also an extraordinary knitter, and designs many beautiful patterns (which you can find on Ravelry.com). When I saw Ilga at our 100th Anniversary Service on June 8, I told her, tongue in cheek, that I had been cursing her for months. I explained. “Toss it in the bin” she said.” “I can’t do that … I’ve come too far …” was my reply. I will finish this project come hell or high water. This is what it is supposed to look like:
I have completed a number of beautiful items designed by Ilga over the past 15 years. But this one has been challenging. I finally finished the back about 6 weeks ago. Then I started one of the front panels.
Similar in pattern to the back, but just different enough that I kept making mistakes. Miscounting, doing a ssk when it should have been a p2tog. Tried to make up for it. Sometimes I was able to go back a few rows and correct the mistake, but I usually just made it worse. Last week I looked at it for a long time. “Just do it”, I said to myself. So I ripped it out and started the front panel again.
This week, I think I might finally have figured out where I was going off the rails.
There is something utterly devastating, and yet completely refreshing about starting over again. I have done it, on many other projects, dozens of times. And each time, I am surprised at how I feel like such a failure one minute, and then full of hope and determination the next. It’s a clean slate. And I try to look at the pattern with fresh eyes. Sometimes I even have to walk away from it for awhile. With this one, it’s been days, even weeks.
The question is always “can I live with this mistake?” Sometimes I can. But occasionally, I know that in the end, I will feel better if I start over. And yet usually I continue to resist for awhile … even knowing that I will feel better if I just begin again.
When I first started knitting about 20 years ago I was knitting prayer shawls. I had started a prayer shawl ministry at St. Andrew’s and figured I shouldn’t be asking folks to do something I didn’t do myself. My great aunt-Nina, my grandmother’s sister who had the cottage next to my grandmother’s, taught me to knit when I was about 8. She knit all the time. I never quite took to it. I crocheted a lot in my late teens and early 20s, but left that behind in the busyness of life.
The original prayer shawl pattern was a very simple repetitive pattern that I thought “I can do this while I am watching TV at night.” I realized quite quickly that when I was knitting I was not working on some project that I had brought home from one of my two jobs or one of the courses I was taking. It really was a total break from everything else I was doing. I also found that it was quite meditative … sometimes. Not that long ago I read that knitting has been shown to reduce blood pressure. Obviously not my latest project lol.
I did often wonder if any of the dark energy and anxiety from the British mysteries we were always watching crept into the prayer shawls I was knitting. I guess I will never know the answer to that.
Since I took up knitting I have often found myself reflecting on many of life’s experiences through the metaphor of knitting … whether it is unravelling a ball of wool, ripping out a pattern and starting again, trying to figure out what seems like a complicated set of instructions, or just quietly knitting something repetitive.
So, if you ever see me wearing a back lacy vest, you will know that I completed my most recent project. I think I will be ready for a basic scarf or shawl next.
After this Sunday, I am on vacation for two weeks. Tuesday I will travel to Toronto to visit one of my best friends. Then we will go on one of our many road trips … we have taken many over the past 25 years. We will drive north to visit my sister in Southampton, and then to St. Thomas (actually, Port Stanley) to see Alana, Matt and Murphy, and then back to Toronto.
I will see you on July 7.
And yes, I will take my knitting with me.
Blessings on your summer.
These are three shawls that ended up as Christmas gifts Matt gave to his mom, grandmother and uncle’s girlfriend.
