An exercise of will, part 2

[darkemeralds]

Today I'm knitting. Knitting is part of my Big Plan For Self-Improvement In 2012.

It's taken years, but I've finally accepted that "self-improvement" doesn't mean changing what I am. It means being better at what I am.

Well, what I am, among other things, is a craftswoman, and I like knitting. So I've decided that 2012 is the year I become as good a knitter in reality as I am in my imagination



I've defined four knitting skills* I want to master, and four big projects** that those skills will help me achieve this year.



My first proving ground is an Aran-style cardigan, which I started in November. Last night I finished the second sleeve, and this morning I looked at those sleeves in the proverbial cold light of day.

It wasn't a happy moment.

I told myself some stories about how I could make them work. Tight forearms could be a style statement...yeah! Nobody will notice the weird leg-o'mutton line of the shoulder...right?

I argued with myself for fifteen minutes before I finally admitted that the sleeves were simply wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. A month's worth of knitting, wasted.



In The Practicing Mind, Thomas Sterner proposes a simple model for any practice, drawn from Buddhist tradition: Do, Observe, Correct.

Well, I'd Done, and, like most hurried Westerners, I was about to Re-Do. I always just Re-Do. It is the slowest, most inefficient way to improve at anything, but it's the way our entire society seems to favor. "Again! Repeat! Go-go-go!" We hurry to do it wrong one more time. Only the naturally gifted move ahead, while we sacrifice loads of potential talent on the altar of haste.

Just as I was about to start ripping those sleeves out, something went *ping*. It said, "Slow down. You're about to make the same mistakes again."

So before I raveled a single stitch, I Observed. I checked my math and found my error. I measured everything again. I acknowledged a second problem with the sleeves that I'd been ignoring. I photographed, annotated, and Evernoted. I updated my written pattern.

Then I ripped the sleeves back to the shoulders and started them all over again.

This time, all the uncertainty and wild-ass guesswork of the careless first Doing are gone. This is Correction, and I know it, and so the work is calmer, more confident, more regular. Faster, even. It's better.

I think I'm beginning to understand these magical people who consistently produce high-quality work without angst. I think I might be able to become one of them.

It's about time.

*matching increases and decreases, Kitchener grafting and bind-off, short-row shaping, top-down raglan shoulders

**Two cardigans, a jacket, and possibly a pullover.

Comments

[vampirefan]

when i first learned to knit, i remember that the teacher would have us all do stitch pattern swatches. i had a spiral notebook full of swatches. all tied to the spiral with the pattern written on the page next to it.

that really helped me, i think, to pay attention and learn really well what the knit and purl stitches look like (i know a new-ish knitter who still has trouble with that), how cables form and how different stitches affect the finished product. i can't find my damn notebook. i think it got left in mexico when i moved here and was lost at some point (even though i left it in the house my parents still owned at the time)

when i picked up knitting again, i came across a book: "magnificent mittens" and that one had a bunch of different castons and castoffs that i'd never seen and i tried 'em all out (still haven't made any mittens from that book!)

so basically. yes, practice makes perfect! :P

[darkemeralds]

Your description of that training--the swatching, the careful building of knowledge and understanding--has been one of my inspirations in this process. At first I was all, "Oh, I envy her so much for having learned early, and formally--waah, boo-hoo, I didn't get that, poor me."

Then I sort of slapped myself around a little and said, "It's not too late, you know, lame-ass. That's what the internet is for." Knowing it was possible because I knew someone who'd done it really opened the door in my mind. So thank you!

\o/

[ranunculus]

I've recently tried to start knitting again. My Aunt tried to teach me about 30 years ago and I made one lumpy scarf and hat. Coming back to it I'm terribly intimidated by all the figuring out of stitches, counting and so on. All I really want to do is run back to my crochet hooks and say "crochet is SO much simpler"!!!

Slinks off and contemplates doing the dreaded swatches.

[vampirefan]

i did a lot of crocheting at first. i made doilys...the kind people would put on the arms of their couches or on the backs of the couches, or on round side tables. lots with the "pineapple" type motif. (no idea where they all ended up at!). there's counting galore in those kind of motifs if you want it to end up round and not lopsided!

once i started knitting, it seemed to be that there was less effort to get the stitches done than there is in crochet and my hands got less tired. there are definitely advantages and disadvantages in each craft. :)

good luck! there are so many resources available now, youtube videos and knittinghelp.com, and of course, ravelry.com!

[darkemeralds]

Like vampirefan, I learned to crochet well before I learned to knit. It's definitely simpler in that you only have one stitch before you at a time. I remember it being easy to develop speed, and I used to enjoy thread crocheting. I still have a set of really effective potholders I made from Knit-Cro-Sheen mercerized cotton thread.

I took to knitting because the possibilities for actual clothing seemed greater, as the fabric it can produce is more versatile.

Both crafts are wonderfully relaxing and have their uses and their avid advocates, and Ravelry is a great place to encounter them all!

[darkemeralds]

You've reminded me of another skill I intend to acquire this year. I can tell knit and purl stitches apart, but there's a lot about "reading the knitting" that I'm not very good at. I suck and counting rows (which is how my sleeves turned ridiculous), I'm marginal at counting stitches, I have a hard time detecting where an increase or decrease actually happened--stuff like that.

I have a knitting co-worker, justjen, who can read a piece of knitting as easily as I read a paragraph of text. She can spot exactly where you went wrong, and how, when something looks funny. She can deconstruct cables and find her own mistakes in huge swaths of lace.

I'd like to get better that that kind of thing. Plain old practice and repetition will help, I know, but I think mindfulness--the intention to learn it, and a plan for learning--will make it smoother.

Oh! Two skills in this area that I've acquired while making this Aran are correcting a mistake several rows down by laddering just a few stitches (I rescued a 6-stitch cable this way \o/); and ripping back with confidence. I used to be afraid that I could never pick up all the stitches again, but I've learned how. So that's progress!

[vampirefan]

oh yay! being able to understand how to fix a stitch a few rows down is definitely a necessary skill! i find that using a crochet hook is the best way to knit/purl a stitch upward.

i can usually kinda tell where i've made a mistake - but that's after carefully looking over what i've done. in lace, i have a much harder time telling where i went wrong and i definitely cannot even try to do any laddering!! so what i do is count each pattern row once i've knitted it, so i can make sure i have the correct amount of stitches (and boy, have i benefited from others who usually have already figured this stuff out and share their charts with the counts on them!)

i just had to figure out where i created an additional stitch on this last row of the shawl i'm working on and it took me quite a while after carefully reviewing what i had done. but i prefer that to having to frog back. it would be a disaster for me especially since i don't have a lifeline inserted.

[darkemeralds]

You've reminded me of another prong in my multi-pronged attack on Mediocre Knitting: the right tools. God knows why I was so resistant to them, but I was. I've embraced charts (long way to go yet before I really understand how they work); I use County (Android row-counting app) religiously where row-count matters--because I seriously used to just wing it, and then get frustrated with my own mistakes. Lame lame lame.

I have a good needle gauge, a tape measure and a calculator in my kit. I have proper cable needles and a cute little wooden hook for that laddering-repair trick. I haven't used a lifeline yet, but when lace gets on my agenda in 2013, I will! I'm so impressed that you could identify and fix a lace mistake.

Evernote is probably my most powerful tool: I photograph stuff with my phone and send it directly to an Evernote, where I then write down measurements, mistakes, corrections, ideas--everything. It's the best tool ever!

Tools I still need are a big blocking surface and blocking pins. Probably some other things, too.

Anyway, I've embraced all the aids, tools, helpers and tricks I can get my hands on, and that's really speeding up my progress.

Oh, and have you seen this chart-generator? Pretty neat.