Not Afraid to Fail

I realized I've been making some personal progress, and it's showing up in my knitting world.

Trying Valiantly
I'm not sure if it's age, self-knowledge, or having some security in my life, but I seem to be much less fearful lately.

Don't get me wrong, I've never been jumpy or fearful of things in an overly compulsive way and other than being somewhat terrified of bats, I've never had too much of an irrational fearful reaction to anything (and I could easily debates that a strong fearful reaction to bats is appropriate). But I have always had fears, doubts and worries that might have stopped me from otherwise doing something. A fear of failure and/or some sense of fearing looking less than perfect.

This past Christmas, I decided to try and get three knitting projects done in time to give as Christmas gifts. I finished the pair of crochet lace spats and the pair of legwarmers got finished just after Christmas.

The third gift was a weaving project that I thought I'd start VERY last-minute. Since I celebrate Christmas with the recipient on January 1st, I had a week to try and use my rigid-heddle loom to make four place mats.

I knew going into the project that there was absolutely no room for error, or they wouldn't be finished in time. I figured we had a perfectly great gift for her anyway, so even if I made a mistake that prevented me from finishing the project on time, it wouldn't be the end of the world.

I got the loom all warped and finished the first place mat on Thursday evening. That gave me Friday and Saturday to prep the loom and weave 3 more. On Saturday morning, I was just starting the fourth one, when I realized the second and third place mates were too short and would need to be re-done. That was the mistake that made me realize I wouldn't make the goal of finishing by Saturday evening.

Oh well, there's always her birthday!

Current Knitting/Weaving
Here are a couple of photos of the weaving in progress.

I do have two completed place mats now and I'll eventually finish two more so that I'll have a gift stored away for my friend.

I also finished the two sleeves for the zippered cardigan and started a pair of felted clog slippers.

I'll have photos of those projects in future blog entries.

Men's Knitting Retreat Auction
There's been quite a bit of activity on the auction.

I just realized it would be possible to win a wooden yarn swift or a full sweater worth of yarn for the price of a dollar. I'm glad the contributions of my yarn and knitting sundries will go to a good cause.

So, please...check it out and see if you might not want to win something that you could get for VERY cheap.

http://mensknittingretreat.com/images/MSKR2011Lottery/MSKR2011Lottery2.html