Lessons

I have a post-it on my desk at work that reads, "Every situation is simply a mirror of ourselves. Everything we think or do in a situation tells us exactly what we need to know about ourselves." It's by Geri Larkin, one of my favorite writers.

I decided to start the Clara Cowl last night. It should be a fast knit, and there's only one cowl to be knit (as opposed to socks and mittens and fingerless gloves). I put the skein on the swift and started to wind. I noticed that it seemed that a couple loops doubled back on one another, but I reasoned that it would probably just switch directions when it got to that point and that would be fine.

It became tangled--so tangled that I had to disentangle from both ends as well as the middle. 

Lesson 1: When you think something matters, it does.... even if you don't want it to be so.

It uses a provisional cast-on, which I do not enjoy, but I figured it out after a few tries and some careful viewing of a youtube video. I've used that cast on multiple times, but I can never remember how to do it.

Lesson 2: It's okay to have to work hard at something, and it doesn't matter if you think it's something you should already know. What matters is that you continue to try.

This pattern uses big cables--24 stitches--which means that you have one-third of your stitches being cabled over another one-third. It gets messy. I wasn't sure the first cable was correct, but I figured I'd be better able to tell once I was farther along in the pattern. At the end of the evening, I had this:

Somehow the first cable had knit into a tube. I think it's because I had the yarn in front when it should have been in back or vice versa.

Lesson 3: If you think something's wrong, it probably is... even if you don't want it to be so. See Lesson 1.

I ripped it all out and trotted upstairs to wind it back up.

It became so entangled on the ball winder that I had to cut it out and then spit splice it back together again.

Lesson 4: Sometimes you should just read a book.