Despite this blog’s moniker, I am actually not a fan of drama in the least. However, much like a cat, I think the more you dislike it, the more it is likely to come after you and demand your attention.
When I can cut drama out in my life, I do not hesitate to do so (I’m talking about the bad kind of drama, not the overly dramatic hilarious situations that sometimes come up in life). This is especially true when it comes to knitting. I enjoy a challenge when it comes to knitting, but not to the point where I am loathe to pick the thing up and work on it.
This happened to me recently with a project (and by recently I mean I haven’t picked it up in about 6 months). I agreed to make a hat for a friend and she chose the Snow Devil Hat by the DomiKNITrix*. I think the hat is very cool looking and I love the horns and the ties on this hat. I was totally gung ho. However, when I started to knit this hat, my love quickly faded. This pattern is too fiddly for me. I have no doubt that there are people out there in the knitosphere who love this pattern and have had no trouble with it. However, I am not one of those people. I have no problem with shaping and all that, but for me, the directions were not clear and I didn’t like the way the hat was turning out. Part of this may have been the pattern, part of this may have been me.
Regardless of why, I now know that I am not a fiddly knitter and I am going to be proud of this fact. There are things out there that I will not knit because of this and there’s nothing wrong with this.
The problem, however, is that I wasn’t knitting this for myself. I was knitting this for someone else. And this is where I love my friends who don’t knit, but appreciate knitting. She was totally cool with me using a different pattern instead of the one she originally picked out. She likes the alternative I gave her, which is the Adults Only Devil Hat from Debbie Stoller’s Stitch n Bitch book. She thinks it’s cute, so I’m pretty sure she’ll wear it. But what I really appreciated is that she trusted my judgment when it came to the knitting. So, yay! She is going to have one awesome hat that is filled with love and happiness instead of frustration and hate.
And now for a completely random and unrelated quote just for Celeste:
At first I thought they were gay, and then I realized they were just German.
* The reason I didn’t link to the DomiKNITrix or her pattern is because I don’t want to stir up trouble or drama. I’m not pretending to be some amazing knitter who’s abilities are so fantastic that no one should doubt me. I’m just sharing my personal opinion about a pattern that didn’t jive with me.
Thanks!
Last Christmas I made the mohawk hat from that book and after hours of fiddling I totally ignored her directions for increases and did it the way I always do and it turned out great. So I guess I had a similar problem and got by it by ignoring the crazy too complicated instructions.
We have a sign backstage that says: Theatre – Not Drama. It really helps.