An exercise of will, part 2
14/1/12 15:18![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darkemeraldsToday 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.
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.
(no subject)
15/1/12 19:38 (UTC)I have a knitting co-worker,
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!
(no subject)
16/1/12 02:38 (UTC)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.
(no subject)
16/1/12 03:16 (UTC)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.