Frustration, thy name is knitting

I thought tennis was frustrating, but I think knitting is beginning to frustrate me more. Last week, I dug through bags within bags looking for my knitting needles. I opened the storage ottoman and unleashed a tangled mess of yarn skeins. It was a cacophony of colors and textures. I gave up all the overly ambitious patterns and dumped random knitting tools that have no function from what I can tell.

The guest room bed is covered with yarn organized by color, needles, crochet hooks, and a variety of bags I collected to hold all my projects. The bags are now empty, because the projects have never been (or will be) started.

I recently started work on what I thought was an easy scarf pattern. Before cooking, you should read through the entire recipe before starting. Similarly, in knitting one should read the entire pattern before beginning. When cooking, I often skip the initial read-through and later find I am missing an ingredient or two. Then I have to figure out how to compensate, or it’s trash.

Like cooking, I didn’t read the scarf pattern through before beginning. After making the same mistake seven times, ripping, and restarting, I finally got past the first twenty rows without a mistake. The twenty-first row, however had instructions that I reread at least fifty times, and tried unsuccessfully to follow about twenty times.

After a few hours of that frustrating knitting venture, I ripped it all out, trashed the pattern, and found something new to knit. After a few false starts, I may be on my way to a completed scarf. However, it’s been four hours, and I have about three inches completed; not brag-worthy, for sure.

My sister, Phyllis, also knits, and like me, she hasn’t been working on her projects lately. She had been on a hat-knitting binge but got bored and took a break. When I told her that the cold, wet weather is settling in and I have pulled out my knitting, she was inspired and called to tell me that she too, had pulled out some projects and was back at it.

I was the one who taught her the basic knitting stitches, and with that she morphed into a knitting machine. She has made exquisite sweaters, baby blankets, shawls, scarves and even a beaded bag that my niece used at her wedding.

She is a perfectionist about knitting and sewing. An accomplished seamstress, she loves to sew and has made some beautiful things. I am by no means a perfectionist, especially when it comes to knitting or sewing. I am a good knitter, but stress over putting together sleeves, attaching back and front pieces, or any other fine detail work. I usually try once or twice to put the sleeves in and match up the back and front, but after a while, if it doesn’t look right, I give up and go to Plan B. That’s the plan where I pack it all up with extra yarn, a picture of what the finished item should look like, and send it off to my sister.

Lucky for me, she is usually willing to finish my projects. I think she likes the challenge; a challenge I can live without. This time of year, the challenge of driving in the fog and ice for a tennis game, making dinners when Daniel works a long day, and trying to keep muddy floors clean is enough frustration for me, so happy knitting Phyllis and thank you.