The Five Stages of Knitting

I've had a wood and nail knitting loom for several years now. It's a beautiful thing, all folksy and rustic. It's also rather large and a bit intimidating. When it was gifted to me, it came with an instructional video that I, in my deepest and clearly most sound logic, never watched all the way though. Because of that, I became somewhat fearful of using it.

This is somewhat silly as I am quite good at my plastic looms. I can do quite a lot with them and tend to like to use them in terms of just day to day knittery. For some reason though, the big wood monster just never clicked with me. I loved to look at it. I would move it from place to place in the living room, allowing it to have a nice level of display. Look at me. I am a folksy knitter! Eventually, practicality won out over my posing and I moved it into the hallway with the rest of my craft stuff.

I don't like having stuff just lying around though. If I have something in my house, I want it to serve a purpose.  In this case, it's not really the loom's fault it isn't serving a purpose. That's all on me. As to respect the honor of the loom, I've decided I shall learn to work with it, despite it's size and the fact that I almost always make things slip off of those nails.

Then again, I've noticed that when it comes to knitting, I usually go through this process. It's kind of like the five stages of grief, but with some variations.

BLACKHAIRED BARBIE'S FIVE STAGES OF KNITTING

1. Curiosity. In the first stage, I will have a certain level of admiration about a knitting style/process. It won't be enough for me to really do anything, but I will express an interest in it and adore it. I'll pay close attention to anything having to do with said aspect of knitting and it will make me happy.

2. Obsessive Desire. Curiosity gives way to a burning need to understand the knittery. I will buy things to accomplish it. I will watch instructional videos. I will watch hours of people on YouTube. I will plot out projects in my head, complete with the sounds of cheering whenever my masterful knit project has been accomplished.

3. Failure.  At some point, my obsessive need to do the knitting will result in my physical attempt to make it happen. I should take a moment here to say that I know some very talented knitters, people who can make beautiful things with yarn, people who are true artists at this craft. I'm . . . not one of them. I am, at best, an OKAY knitter. At best. Usually, I'm a 'wow, that hat is wonky but hey it keep my head warm' knitter. So pretty much any time I begin a new knitting skill, I usually screw it up a lot.

4. Frustration and hopelessness. Once I have made a complete mess of my project, I fall into a deep despair about it. I usually put it away for a while. I feel horrible. I wonder why I have such a deep love for something I fairly much suck at. I feel a lot of guilt and pressure every time I walk by the project. I consider giving it up completely.

5. Acceptance of my somewhat adequate skill. After I've wallowed in frustration for a few years months weeks, I remember the desire and happiness I felt about this knitting project, and I return to it. I watch more videos and practice with some ugly yarn, and eventually get to where I can do the project with reasonable levels of competence. I brave through the process, enjoying the work, and find that I am usually somewhat-ish happy with the results.

So I guess with the wooden loom, I've found my way back to Stage Five. I'm ready to try and learn how to make it work. I'm prepared to find a way to balance it on the pile of blankets in front of me and not get frustrated when my carefully wrapped yarn all pulls off because I couldn't remove it from the nailheads in any kind of graceful manner. Over all, I'm feeling marginally optimistic about it. I'll report my progress . . . assuming there is any.