From a very young age I characteristically have been known to zoom ahead in any task with little regard for those trivial "baby steps". It happened in ballet class at age 3 when I wanted to pirouette with a flouncy tutu across the stage like a real prima ballerina. When the class consisted of the aforementioned baby steps that amounted to little more than marching around the room with "knees up high", I was distraught to say the least. My dancing career was very short-lived. 30 years later when I tell my daughter to join in and "dance!" to which she matter-of-factly replies "But Mommy, they're not DANCING!", I have to grin and shut right up. I know where she's coming from.
Again I was faced with this whole "baby steps" hogwash in Grade 10 when my dad and I signed up for downhill skiing lessons. I gave up after 2 lessons because I had no patience for all those little details. Snowplow?! Snowplowing is for wusses. I'm going straight down this hill and not you or that parked car at the bottom of the baby hill can stop me. Oh wait. That car can stop me. And then my spectacle can stop the entire mountain of skiers so they can point and laugh at my crumpled body lying in a heap on top of the snow. (True story)
I face this problem time and time again. I glance over things, I read things semi-thoroughly, I listen with one ear. One could say it's a bad habit, but I like to think it's my joie-de-vivre that compels me to absorb EVERYTHING all at once without wanting to miss out on any of the good stuff, while those little details sometimes pass me by.
It doesn't escape me in my knitting. Problem is knitting is ALL about attention to detail. Not to miss a single "yarn over", or a "make one". Or in this case, in Stephanie Japel's Reclamation Scarf pattern which is a stitch pattern of TWO honkin' rows repeated for Pete's Sake, and I manage to screw that up! So here it is, in my haste to read two lines of directions accurately, a Reclamation Scarf that increases at both the beginning AND end of every row (quite accidentally by mistake...). Luckily I'm too busy joie-de-vivre-ing it up to care! On to the next adventure!
It doesn't escape me in my knitting. Problem is knitting is ALL about attention to detail. Not to miss a single "yarn over", or a "make one". Or in this case, in Stephanie Japel's Reclamation Scarf pattern which is a stitch pattern of TWO honkin' rows repeated for Pete's Sake, and I manage to screw that up! So here it is, in my haste to read two lines of directions accurately, a Reclamation Scarf that increases at both the beginning AND end of every row (quite accidentally by mistake...). Luckily I'm too busy joie-de-vivre-ing it up to care! On to the next adventure!
Pattern: Reclamation Scarf by Stephanie Japel
Yarn: Hand dyed Berroco Alpaca
Amount: 1/4 skein
You mean I'm not the only one that doesn't take the time to properly read the patterns? I feel so much better now.
ReplyDeleteI have an especially hard time with patterns that have paragraphs of instructions for each row - just give me a chart.