Two Steps Back

I was making excellent headway on the Lycaena virgaureae socks.

Lycaena virgaureae socks (mine ravelled here),

knit in Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Lightweight in a random mill end

As I traipsed down the leg, I thought, "Huh. I wonder why these two purl stitches are here. It seems odd. Oh, well. I bet she's going to do something awesome on the heel."

What I should have thought, of course, was, "Huh. This doesn't feel as elegant as Hunter's patterns usually are. Let me check to make sure I'm not doing something wrong."

Lesson: Read the pattern carefully rather than assuming that I know what it's saying.

Yesterday I took advantage of the day off to do a little work on my quilt. I sewed three strips of squares and then sewed them together. When I went to pin it to the rest of the quilt for the next seam, there was a problem.

I bought a quilting foot for my sewing machine. In all the sewing I had done yesterday, I had lined up the edge of the fabric with the outer metal edge of the foot.

That was wrong. It's supposed to be lined up with that weird notched line. I still maintain this is a stupid way to build a sewing foot, but the fact remains that I sewed them all incorrectly. One-eighth of an inch for each square means that the rows were over 3.5" too short. That can't be fudged.

That's ninety quilt squares. Ninety.

I spent a great deal of quality time with a ripper.

Here's what I choose to take away from this: I am a persistent person. I make mistakes, but I'm willing to do the work to correct them. These are excellent traits.

It's either focus on that or be plunged into the Pit of Despair by my mistakes. I choose the former.

Some days, it's just two steps back and no forward movement. That's okay.

I'm persistent.