Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Letting go of perfection out of necessity

For some reason everything I touch in a creative sense is going less well than I would like. It seems my mind is just not totally in the game.

Well except for the ice cream, that came out exceptionally well!

But the Urth in process sock has an extra decrease row because I trusted my memory and thought I should end up with 18 stitches as the end of the decrease row instead of 20.  I've already picked up the gusset so I decided against ripping it back. Mind you this is about my tenth sock in this pattern and I also could have looked it up, I just didn't.


Then I knit the lace portion of the ranunculus a ridiculous amount of times because I kept making mistakes.  If the pattern called for pick up a loop, k3  I did just that the majority of the times, but I'd lose track and  occassionally pick up a loop and K2.  This of course makes the count and the whole pattern off. The last pattern repeat of picking up the loop is off, but the stitch count is right, I decided to live with it.


When I first worked with the shrink plastic I just sat down and colored and was happy with the results.  Now for some reason I am totally intimidated and nothing is quite as I would like it.  This one got a divot when I was shrinking it.  Also the left charm is heavy meaning that pendant won't center balance when I  use a chain or ribbon to suspend it.  How did I not see that coming?  The coloration is also not my best work.  I didn't like the initial result so I just kept adding color.


I find that I want to strike a balance somwhere between letting go of perfectionism and working at getting my head a little more in the game.  I'm not entirely sure what that looks like but I'm thinking a morning yoga practice might bring some focus.  At 67 I've never done  yoga (well except for a brief stint in my 30's) so I will start with a gentle yoga for beginners.

What about you?  Are you struggling more with getting it right?  Do you have techniques you're using to keep life in balance?

3 comments:

Nancy Charlton-Venezia said...

Marcia, I'm 72 and I am back to yoga. I really like the Rodney Yee yoga videos. He's gentle, but you feel like you're doing something.

Marcia DeCoster said...

oooh thanks, I will look him up!

Unknown said...

Thank you for the suggestion Nancy, I will look at those as well. Marcia, I really think Covid head is a real thing; I'm so forgetful it's just stupid, and have mind wanders just like you're describing as well. Not sure of the solution, unfortunately.