The Metaphor Scarf and Other Projects

So, I started knitting this shortly after baby was born. I saw this pattern on the Purl Bee and thought it looked pretty achievable. A really nice effect with minimum thought or effort.

I didn't bother buying the recommended yarn - I had a ball left over from something else that I thought would work, so I just got stuck in. And in between changing nappies and waking up all night and rocking a screaming baby and feeling sore, I knitted a row here and a row there.

And as I did so, I thought to myself how nice it was to do something that I could see growing and that would be finished, in the midst of this new crazy hamster wheel of a parenting life.

It will be a lovely metaphor I thought, a physical enactment of the effort I have been putting in every minute every day with this new life. Something I can hold and use, that shows how all those little stitches make something big and whole.

Hmmm. So I came to the end of the ball of yarn, and realised there was no more, and realised it was really rather short (as in you couldn't wrap it round your neck in any way which would stay on), and also rather stiff and scratchy due to using the wrong yarn!

I stitched the ends up to make a loop - the only way to make it wearable, albeit slightly peculiar. And now, instead of making me think of the hard slog of those early days and how I worked so hard and am achieving things however much it sometimes doesn't feel like it, it just makes me think of how doing knitting projects with (not enough of) the wrong yarn, the wrong needles and no preparation results in something a bit disappointing. Not such a lovely metaphor!

Having said all that, it obviously didn't teach me its lesson as I am currently embarked on another project with the wrong needles and the wrong yarn. When you have leftover stuff to use up and you want to start something NOW its just too tempting. I'm hoping I can estimate/bodge the adjustments I need to make to make it the right size. We'll see...

The other thing about that scarf though was that I decided I had to finish that before moving onto any other project. I have a list of projects I want to do - things like clearing out my wardrobe and putting photos in albums as well as things I'd like to make. This approach has been very succesful so far. I'm an excellent planner, a relatively good starter and a terrible finisher of things. Making myself do one thing at a time has been a very good discipline for me. After the scarf I got stuck into filing of important documents and papers, and have just finished that. Finished something! The feeling is quite unusual. (Whether this kind of efficiency continues is another matter... )