I Am My Worst Student

Gah. People tell me a lot that I am so patient.... yeah, sure, with other people. I can sit with a new knitter, a knitter wannabe, a person who is truly in danger of  impaling themselves on their own needles (don't laugh; it has happened) and be perfectly happy as they struggle with furrowed brows, making the same error time after time. I can smile sweetly as they become infuriated with themselves, and calm them down with true serenity in my eyes. It never ever bothers me to repeat things many, many times to people whom I am teaching, it really is kind of fun.

But.

When I am the learner, I suck at learning. I am whiney, petulant, indignant, angry, and distracted. I am angry because I want to just sit down and have it come out perfect the first time. I want never to make a mistake, even on the first time I am trying a new thing, or a new technique. And it wasn't until today that I realized how ludicrous this is, and how laughable I must be to any observers who notice me when I am trying to learn something new.

As owner of Unique One, I feel it is imperative that I should be able to knit every single sweater that we sell, if I need to. However for the past two years I have harbored a dark little secret.... there are some sweaters that we sell that until now I couldn't have knit for you myself for love or money. I just didn't know how. There are sweaters that have three colors in a row, and our knitting machines only can do two colors in a row... that means that the third color has to be "hand knit" on the machine, i.e., hand-manipulated to replicate the look of the knitted stitches around them. I got the general idea... but there also was the issue of wrapping the edges of the single motifs to prevent holes... and the exact placement of the needles was beyond me. So I lived in fear of the day when someone ordered, for example, a Belted Galloway sweater ... and Susan, the only one who knows how to knit them, might be unavailable to knit it. I really hated the thought that there was something I didn't know how to do. I mean geez, this is my livelihood, after all.

So today, it being slow in the store, and me looking to avoid doing any filing..... I sat down at the machine and cast on a Beltie swatch. The Belted Galloway motif is only 26 rows high. Twenty six. And I only cast on 48 stitches for the swatch. And I was, remember, knitting it on a knitting machine.

But oh, my God. It was like I was trying to tie my shoes and I had no thumbs.  The first seven rows were fine, just like any single motif sweater I've made before. And then the three-colors-in-a-row crap  fun began. Every row, I had to read the instructions Susan had written out for me.... several times. Every row. Several times. And then to actually do the task, to move the carriage across... to lift the yarn off the tops of the needles.... to hand-knit the white belt stitches, matching the tension....to REMEMBER to pull the dang white belt stitch needles back into the hold position ( I screwed that up twice.... how many times do I have to make the same blasted stupid mistake before I remember to do it right?!)... to wrap the contrast color and then the main color to prevent holes... man. It was hard. The whole time I kept thinking about how fast, how effortlessly Susan knit these belted galloway motifs... a matter of moments, and another little belted cow had appeared on a sweater. She makes it look so easy!  And I was struggling along at such a snail's pace. It was infuriating, to know how fast it was possible to go, and to see how slow I was. At one point as I was ranting about how slow I was, Tracy said, "See? That's how we all feel when you go zip, zip, zip and fix our knitting, and we sit there feeling so sloooooow." I have heard people say things like that as I worked on their knitting problems, things like, wow, you knit so fast! But until today I never really knew how they felt. Now, I do.

Guess! Guess how long it took me to knit one stinking swatch with a twenty-six row pattern on a  knitting machine?  Hmmmmmmm? I asked Susan to guess... she doubled what it would take her and said, "Twenty minutes?" I laughed. "Oh no," she said, "you were probably waiting on customers too... thirty minutes?" I laughed harder and also assured her I hadn't waited on any customers.

"An hour and a half!!!!!!" I crowed. "NINETY minutes!!!!"  I don't think she really believed me. But its true. I make a terrible student. However... I did do it! And it came out right! And now there is nothing Unique One sells that I can't theoretically make myself if I have to. Whether I enjoy it or not... well, that's beside the point. And besides, the more I do it, the easier and faster it will be. I just have this delusion that it should be easy and I should excel at it from the first moment on. Heh heh, I think I need to grow up. :D

So, y'all... go out there and learn something! Challenge yourself! If I can do it, you can!!

Comments

[Denise]

hehhe That's ok I can't even figure out how to do one color on the knitting machine!