A Sasquatch hat and a dream
Yesterday, I tried to knit a hat for myself without a pattern. And I failed. Not entirely. I mean, I ended up with a hat. It’s even a really cute hat. But it is waaaaay too big for me. It may be way too big for most people, (and Sasquatches.) But, that can be fixed. OK, *this* hat can’t be fixed. It’s just a cute, ginormous hat. But next time I can make adjustments and correct my mistake. (I will only cast on about 2/3 of the stitches.) And I did figure out how to shape the top of the hat evenly, and it looks exactly like I wanted it to. That was something I had been worried about.
It may seem silly, but I worried a lot about making this hat in the days before I attempted it. Why worry? I don’t know. There was nothing at stake. Worrying is just in my nature.
I completed my first knitting project, a simple baby blanket, right about 3 years ago. And then immediately jumped into making a baby sweater with a free on line tutorial, which was an excellent lesson and made me realize that I was both good at, and thoroughly enjoyed knitting. And while I do love knitting from patterns, I want to be able to make the kinds of things I want. I have a particular style and one thing I really want to do is design clothes for myself.
That will take a few things on my part. 1) To continue to knit from patterns and learn from from them. To see what kind of stitch patterns make which shapes. 2) To continue to stretch myself by learning new, more difficult techniques. And 3) to attempt (and at least sometimes fail) to design my own patterns.
In other words, I am playing a long game here. I will not be a great pattern designer over night. I will not be making up complicated cable knit sweater patterns any time soon. I have to steadily practice, learn, and attempt.
When I was eating compulsively, I had no patience. I could not handle any kind of difficulty. I could only attempt things I was fairly certain I would succeed at. And I could not improve. Because improvement takes work. It takes the willingness to fail. It takes frustration and perseverance.
But once I felt the frustration, I almost always quit. Because feeling discomfort of any kind was too much for me. If I had a difficult feeling, especially a feeling of inadequacy, I ate it. I shoved it down with cake.
In getting my eating under control, I had to learn to sit in discomfort. I had to let it be there, and let there be nothing to do about it. I had to accept life the way it was, and myself the way I was.
But on the other side of acceptance was that I could try again. And not just that I could, but that I wanted to. When there is no sugar to numb those feelings, the best way to quell feelings of failure is to give it another go. I understood for the first time that my life wasn’t set in stone. I wasn’t “just that way” about anything. In fact, if I wasn’t “just that way” about food and being fat, which I had truly believed for the first 28 years of my life, then I knew I must be able to do other things. Maybe even anything.
And I learned that I liked trying better than not trying. I learned that I liked the feeling of success after failure so much more than being “a natural.” I liked learning more than knowing.
So I have a ridiculously huge hat, with perfect decreases in the crown. And I also have everything I need to try again: the yarn and the needles, and the desire to get better and do more.
onceafatgirl 