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Making and Fixing Mistakes

darning and fixing a hole in knitting, repairing a mistake

Fixing a Mistake: a hole, in knitting

I’ve been thinking a lot about mistakes lately.

One of my most popular classes is titled “Oops!”  The class hits home with knitters and crocheters: sometime, somewhere, we all are going to make a mistake.  Probably even more than one mistake.  And if it’s a big enough mistake, it’s going to need to be fixed.  It’s a simple premise for the class.  Let’s take the pressure off making mistakes, and deliberately make them – and then learn how to fix the mistakes we’ve created.  Oops is a class, that, at it’s heart, is about being human.  Instead of pretending that mistakes don’t happen, it faces them head-on.

I’ve heard it quoted a couple of times that in Navajo rug work the weaver puts a deliberate “mistake” into their work: the idea being that only the Creator is perfect.  You hear this idea echoed in Indian or Persian rugs, or in Islamic geometric designs.  While some people believe the myth is not true, there’s a point to be made in the story: by being human, we make mistakes, and in some ways we should make peace with it.

The Yarn Harlot’s written about mistakes dozens of times.  Elizabeth Zimmerman held the idea that there are no mistakes in knitting, as long as the results turn out the way you want.  Heck, mistakes are so common in patterns that there’s a word for it: errata.

Yet, two weeks ago I was a stew of anxiety as I went through tech editing for three of my patterns coming out in the fall.

darning a hole in a worn out glove - repairing a mistake

Fixing a hole formed in a worn-out glove

It’s funny: a large part of my income comes from doing away from imperfections: repairing broken things, and fixing mistakes in pieces seen as unsaveable.

Yet, when it comes to my *own* mistakes, I’m hesitant to talk about them.

Perhaps it’s because of the scale. To me, a mistake in a blanket affects nothing except the blanket.  If I make a mistake cooking, or gardening, or in any of my personal activities, the only person harmed is myself (and perhaps Mr. Turtle, if he’s forced to eat my cooking).  In contrast, a mistake in a pattern affects someone else’s life.  It can inconvenience them.  A mistake in a pattern can take hours for a tech editor to untangle; in worst cases, it can derail publishing deadlines and hurt the bottom line.  Mistakes on that scale can be costly.

I’m not one to let go of my own mistakes lightly.  In 10th grade, on a field assignment, I broke a thermometer that my teacher was letting me borrow.  I was heartbroken and that night I cried myself sick, thinking about telling my teacher the next day that I’d let him down.  The whole day before I could go see him, I worried the situation over like a sore tooth: poking and prodding at it, envisioning the worst case scenario. By the time I got to last period when I could speak to him, I was physically sick and trembling.  My small mistake had become so big in my mind it has physiological effects.  When I went to tell him what was wrong, I ended up just crying from the stress.

It’s why I love working for myself: I can choose the people, and the situations, where I’m held accountable.

I’ve grown up since 10th grade, but big mistakes still have the ability to immobilize me, at least a little.  Crafting an email in response to an irate customer can still leave me feeling queasy.

So two weeks ago, when I had not one, but two patterns in tech edits with some significant problems, I struggled to keep my composure.  In a conversation to my friend Becca, she put things into perspective.

A while back I hired a woman to help me crochet some pieces that were on a deadline.  They were samples, and the patterns were already written, but they needed to be worked up in different yarn.  I had very specific instructions.  I handed off the yarn to her, with a firm emphasis that if problems came up, if her gauge was off, if she made a mistake, she should contact me right away. I knew that she might make mistakes, but as long as she communicated with me, I could manage things.

Unfortunately, when she made mistakes, as sometimes we are wont to do, she kept working the pattern, hoping that if she went further the mistake would be less obvious.  Instead, when I got the pieces, I had to do quite a bit of work to fix things she hadn’t shared with me.

I was angry.  It wouldn’t have been a problem if she had just gotten in touch with me, but instead, she waited until the deadline to inform me of the problems.  It left me with very little time to do damage control.

In the same manner, Becca pointed out, I should handle the mistakes I make.  If I made a mistake, I should be upfront about it.  I shouldn’t cover it up.  Instead, I should communicate what my problem is, and ask for help.

Not so very easy.

Why am I talking about all this?

Well, I’m thinking about how mistakes are viewed in crafting, in the knitting and crochet industry, and in my own personal life.  And I’m thinking about ways I can both respond to mistakes I make, and other’s make, with more grace.

Have you made a mistake in your personal or professional life?  How do you handle them?  I really, really would like to know.

Other Stitchings – Embroidery

As I mentioned before, Michael and I spent New Year’s up at the Farm.  We invited a few friends, including the friend I’ve had the longest, my best-friend Becca.  She was one of the bridesmaids at out wedding, and I’ve known her since I was 9 years old.

Becca and I riding in the back of the Jeep

Becca is amazing.  She’s smart, articulate, and willing to challenge people and make the them think.  So when I was trying to think of a bridesmaid gift for her, I wanted something was representative of our history, and something that was hand-crafted.  Something that showed thought and intention as well as love.  (As I’ve said before, there are few people who are knit/crochet-worthy for me, and fewer still who I’m willing to do other crafts for.)

I decided I was going to do some embroidery for her, of our old camp logo.  Chimney Corners Camp and Becket Camp are a sister and brother camp in the Berkshires, and the camp where both Becca and I grew up.  The camps both have lovely logos now, but the past logo was of a lake-scene, three paper-white-birches, a sailboat and pine trees.  In a very simple sense, it was actually a scene you might see in part of camp, while hiking around the lake.

There are many older staff members who are very attached to the old logo (some even have tattoos of it!), so I knew it would be the perfect thing to embroider.

Originally I only planned to do the outlines of all the different elements, and then color the rest in with crayon and iron it.  This method is how I normally do embroidery, as I have strong negative feelings toward working fill stitches.  So I did that on the pillow, even ironed on the color so it looked nice, and then decided that the pillow really called for everything to be filled in with stitches… everything except the paper birches, which would remain the white of the pillow.

Well, I was working up to the Nth hour, and had to wrap the gift just before we left for the wedding.  I told myself I’d get a picture of the pillow once Becca opened it… and promptly forgot.

But Becca is amazing, so she brought it to the farm for me to take a picture.

And in the joy of seeing friends, I forgot all about taking a picture of the pillow until she was leaving.  She was patient enough to remind me as she packed herself out of the farm just as the daylight was making its way over the field.

Embroidery, Chimney Corners Camp, Old Logo, BCCYMCA
Chimney Corners Camp Old Logo

Isn’t it pretty?

Stitching, other than Knitting and Crochet

While Michael and I were in India, my backpack gave up the ghost.  I’d been babying it for a while, as the zipper had some weak spots where the toggle would jump the track.  But I’d been making it work.  While we were shopping one day, Michael was putting our purchases in the backpack, and being rather rough with it.  I told him, “Be careful, the zipper is delicate.”

He said, “I’ve got it.”

A moment later, he yanked and it broke broke.

Try as we might, that zipper pull wasn’t going back on the track.  In desperation, we cut a hole in the fabric to strap it shut with a length of twine, and I struggled not to be mad at him the rest of the day.

When we got home, we had one gift card left from the wedding that we hadn’t used.  We decided this was going to be used to buy me a new backpack.  So I looked for a new backpack.

Now, it must be said.  I’ve had this backpack for eight years.  It’s been with me since the first day of college, and has carried two computers, books, projects, and more things than I can count.  It’s been to Sweden, across the United States, to India, Norway, and I’ve carried it 5 days out of 7 for the last eight years.  I haven’t had a seam split or a strap break or anything. (It’s one of the higher end models by Jansport).  It has a place to put my computer, with ample padding and a shock absorbing insert on the bottom in case I drop it (which I’ve done a lot).  A roomy main pocket, a headphone pocket that is perfect for a pair of in-progress socks, and plenty of other pockets.

When I looked online, nothing fit.  None of the backpacks I could find (even the ones out of my price-range) had adequate padding.  The shoulder straps were wonky.  I wasn’t looking for much, but nothing fit.  After hitting up multiple stores to look at backpacks in person, and searching online more than I cared to admit, it occurred to me that I might be happier if I just replaced the zipper myself.

So I went digging in my stash of zippers (as my grandmother threw nothing away, and this included clipping buttons and zippers out of everything). Miracle upon miracle, I found a jacket zipper that worked (it means that instead of zipping out from the middle, it zips out from the sides) and fit the hole.

Below follows the process of resurrecting the backpack, if you ever are interested in doing the same:

I unpicked the stitches to the zipper on one side.  On the other side (the part with the red zipper flap) the seam also
held the zipper flap, so I just sewed the new zipper flush to the old zipper.  This worked surprisingly well.
A simple running stitch made in super-tiny stitches worked really well.  I used a bright color for my eyes, and because
 when making repairs of this nature, I had no ability to hide the repair, so might as well make it a design feature, right?
New zipper lying flush to old zipper.
Patience is a virtue.  Halfway through I realized that I’d sewn the zipper in with a twist, had to unpick it and re-sew it.
The cats could not stop staring at me the whole time.  Thread, flicking and moving and
oh-so-pounce-able, and they got spritzed every time they tried to go for it.
Zipper nearly finished, working as it should.