Monday, March 30, 2009

Call the trainer...

'cause I'm getting my ass kicked by a ball of string!
*sigh* Have I mentioned that I am trying my first lace project? And did I tell you that it's also my first time working with lace weight yarn? And did you know that "lace weight yarn" is really some kind of oxymoron? It should be called thread or gossamer. It slips through my fingers like water...

There's a lot of learning/personal growth happening here, I tell you. See, I'm learning that how I hold the thread is like a metaphor for life. I can't grip it all tightly--it'll kill my hands and I'll run out of steam after two minutes. No, I must loosely weave the yarn through my fingers and gently guide them around the needles. I must breathe deeply at regular intervals. And I'm getting the hang of how to handle this yarn. But that's only part of it. The other part to knitting lace (that I know of right now--there could be more lurking around the corner for me) is following the pattern. I took a two-day break from working on this project because I was messing up. I did some reading on lace knitting for practical advice. I bought more stitch markers. And last night, armed with my new index cards and many, many stitch markers, I picked it up again. And about fifteen stitches in, I realized I had too many stitches in this one particular section.

My inner child wants to throw a tantrum in the worst way! But I'm trying to be all zen-like about it...I know that anger and despair are not going to help me actually complete this project. Later this morning I'll be making the executive decision of exactly how many stitches I'm going to rip out. Because I'm not quitting. I will not be defeated by this string and these silly pattern repeats. If I go missing from this space for a while, just know that I'm with the alpaca...

And every time I say alpaca, I think of this.

It is so on!

No comments: