Projects
Surviving the Difficult Sleeve, with Seth Godin’s Help
Everybody seems to be cranking their Stopovers without much drama. So what is wrong with me? I spent more time working the first six rows of a sleeve than it took to knit the rest of the $*%&# sleeve.
It was a good thing I was listening to Krista Tippett’s conversation with Seth Godin, because all his calm talk about noticing was the only thing keeping me from setting fire to this sleeve and altering course toward a sleeveless vestapeysa.
At one point, Seth said something like “Dignity is what we must maintain,” which is when I put my head down on my desk.
I mean, I did it all: forgot to add the thread to the cast-on edge. Kept using green when blue was the color. Ripped out the green only to discover I hadn’t ripped out enough green. Botched the little weird stitch pattern moment where you knit and purl two colors in a 3-1 pattern. All while this flurfy plutoloopy not-yarn gleefully disengaged from the whole project just when I needed it to not do that.
Once I get to the next sleeve, that’s 36 stitches x 7 rows = 242 stitches that I get to relive.
I’m going to Groundhog Day this situation and doggone it find a better attitude for Sleeve Cuff No. 2. I’ve got some Godin-isms ready to steel my resolve:
“You’re going to make it in this world by making.”
“If you practice noticing enough, you’ll get good.”
“Don’t fly too high, but more importantly, don’t fly too low.”
“We’re training people to be afraid of being wrong.”
“Will we support positive tribes or negative ones?”
Whatever else happens, I absolutely know how to do this: “Find ways to feed yourself in the right way.” In this situation, those Belgian Butter Almond Thins from Trader Joe’s really, really feed me in the right way.
Oh, there was drama in my Stopover, all right. Mostly it was me thinking, “How can these people be done with this thing in what seems like 3 hours?” Mine took almost a month. It was my first sweater, so that may have been part of it. Let’s just say that I’m grateful for the first sweater prompt, but I was also grateful to get back to my own quirky little projects!
I always knit both sleeves at the same time. Same needle but 2 balls of yarn. That way they come out exactly the same and you only have to knit 3 pieces : back, front and sleeves. If you knit sleeves separately you will never finish the second one. It’s like doing socks separately. I finally learned how to do both socks together, so much easier. Thanks to videos by Liat Gat (knitfreedom.com)