Three Restarts

When Knitting Arts in Saratoga, CA closed their doors, I bought up a bunch of luscious yarns, mostly one skein each of mouthwatering colors. I had projects in mind but now I've forgotten what skeins go with which projects. I took three projects with me to Pretty Marsh and have been battling with them ever since.

I think I got this skein of blue sky alpaca silk to make an odessa hat for Syl. But now it seems awfully loud, awfully chartreuse, and not right for her at all. Maybe I got it to make another Hungry Caterpillar?? This is my THIRD attempt at making up the hat. I had almost finished it on the second go round when I blew it and couldn't fix my mistake. I considered giving it to charity, but then thought that wasn't very nice, to give a hat with mistakes to someone I didn't know. It really should be perfect or else given to kittens to shred. So, sigh...., I frogged it and began all over. This time I even checked to make sure I was doing the ssk correctly and NO, I hadn't been. I had been doing a psso instead.

Not having worked on this one for months, I clutched at the pattern end of the wrap. I felt alzheimers creeping up on me. HOW could I have forgotten this pattern which I had done for hundreds of rows? Finally I remembered, gratefully. Truly this is the easy one to work on and can be done in all kinds of social situations. It's soothing to work on and not quite half way done. It takes 60 of those point-edges to make an entire wrap and I have completed 22 of them. Let's not forget that this is the second project with the very same yarn that was frogged from a Rebecca pattern.

Habu makes this yarn and provides one with a pattern for a scarf called Kusha Kusha. It's Japanese yarn and pattern, made from stainless steel wrapped with silk and extra fine merino wool. It's more like thread than yarn. Subsequently it gets tangled easily and falls off the needles easily as well. It requires addi-turbo needles that are super slick. This is the third try on this project as well. First I used the wrong size needles, then I knit 25 rows in garter stitch before I took a look at other projects on ravelry and realized it should have been done in stockinette stitch. Yes, the instructions said so. Yes, again I didn't read closely enough. Yes, I'm willing to restart. Luckily I am persistent if sloppy.

All this frogging reminds me that it is much the same in life. If we give up after first tries, we won't get far. It's not a waste of time to make mistakes. I like to think that time serves me well in meditative ways and if nothing else, humbling ways.