Sometimes getting it right means doing it a few times.
Sometimes getting it right means re-doing it a few times
Sometimes getting it right means starting all over from the beginning.
There are those "other" times, those wonderful occasions when getting it right happens the first time through, and you can be sure that I celebrate those moments.
This frothy, cabled piece of mauve fluff is one front of a cardigan that I've been working on for a few weeks. The back, the sleeves, even a very complex collar, just poured out from beneath my needles, but the 2 fronts, were just not that cooperative. This is the left front. It is now finished, but I started and almost finished it 3X before this version you see, and the right front has had much the same journey.
Sometimes we just don't get it right: with a project, with a friend, with a partner, with a business, with a guess, or even a particular path we have chosen to venture down. Sometimes, we have to keep trying, sometimes we need to look at it from a different perspective and there are those times we choose to just give up.
I remember when my grandmother first started to teach me to knit, and I wanted to do something fabulous and she said a scarf and just plain garter stitch rows was the place to start. I was so disappointed. I had visions of a cabled hat and matching mittens, or a poncho (it was the 70s after all) with just the right length of fringe. But I started with a scarf, and yet, even with the easiest of stitches and acres of knitting back and forth across my needles, I made mistakes, I dropped stitches and created holes and as the 10 year old I was, I ended up throwing it in a corner and howling at that pile of wool and sticks.
I could envision what I wanted but my hands couldn't yet take me there.
As you can see, I did pick up my ball of wool and sticks and try again. I tried again many many times until I started getting it "more" right each time I tried. And with each try I managed to garner more patience for my fumbling fingers and my klutzy hands, until they were less klutzy and fumbling.
So, these cardigan fronts made me think about some of the things I have set aside because I couldn't get them "right": the projects I have started and re-started, the canvases I have painted over and started again, or left languishing long enough that I now have the solution I needed months or years before.
There is a phrase that I found totally annoying: practice makes perfect. It is really more true than I sometimes want to see. Sometimes much of the "doing" we are participating in is all about the practice. Sometimes a painting that is started 3, 4, or 16 times gets you to a place where you had only dreamed of going. Sometimes going back to that work project again and again gets you further along a path that you have wanted to venture down. And not just sometimes but very often, practicing to make it right with the people in our lives gets us more deeply in touch with them and also with our own selves.
So, getting it right really may be all about practicing until the moment arrives that it (whatever the it is) actually feels right. And then, hmmm.... my mind leaps to: perhaps those rare moments when we feel that we have gotten it right the very first time really are not so miraculous. Perhaps the first time wins have their grounding in practice we haven't even realised we were doing.
What are you practicing these days?
My husband is a musician (I am too, but a non-practicing one at the moment) and teaches trombone at the U of Redlands school of music (he's also the dean, yup he's pretty busy). Anyway...there is a saying amongst musicians that "Practice makes PERMANENT". When practicing a particular phrase, scale, whatever on a musical instrument, it's best to make sure that you're playing the right note, phrasing, etc...if you're not careful, you'll learn a wrong note and that is dastardly hard to fix later on!
The take home message from this is one of mindful practicing, not mindless. His point to his students is it's better to practice for 15 minutes with total focus, than an hour while your mind is wandering.
Does this apply to making with our hands as well? I think it does! I've spent countless hours over the years perfecting my ability to free motion machine quilt, and although I can NOT draw AT ALL with a pen/pencil, I now am (if I do say so myself) pretty darn good with a sewing machine! While making my botanical sketches (http://www.candiedfabrics.com/gallery/art-quilts/?album=1&gallery=21) I can now sit down and just do it...but I think that this is from years of mindful practice!
Posted by: twitter.com/CandiedFabrics | February 18, 2010 at 01:58 PM
Discovered your blog via artsyville... totally enjoyed your post! Sometimes we all need to be reminded that failure isn't really failure, it's just practice!
Posted by: Barbara | February 19, 2010 at 06:45 AM
So wise and true...sometimes it looks like a great leap has happened overnight, but really that leap could not have been possible without a million tiny baby steps leading up to that, which likely involved slips, stumbles and plenty of do-overs.
Posted by: Swirly | February 19, 2010 at 08:45 AM
Beautiful Liz. The post & the cardigan xo
Posted by: Marisa & Creative Thursday | February 19, 2010 at 09:26 AM
this lesson has always been hard for me to learn - i am so impatient! but of course you're right - when i have to struggle or invest a lot of time practicing/learning something, the achievement is much sweeter.
Posted by: aimee | February 19, 2010 at 10:48 AM
oh THIS is such a beautiful post and oh my GOD the color on the sweater is SWOONY-- beautiful writing beautiful knitting beautiful YOU!
Posted by: Elizabeth | February 20, 2010 at 08:36 AM
found you at artsyville...pretty knit! well, tonight i burned the first round of almonds toasting in the oven but got the second one just right! :)
Posted by: rachel awes | February 20, 2010 at 05:54 PM
So beautifully said and so true. I'm struggling on finding a true path in my handmade life.
My friends and I always make a word game with the word patience: In spanish you say "paciencia" but we divided it in two: paz+ciencia = peace+science. Never forget.
Posted by: Soledad | February 20, 2010 at 07:34 PM
Good points. Lucky you to have learned from your grandmother. Come over and see what the oldest girl here has been up to...(most recent post giveaway)
Posted by: Theresa | February 24, 2010 at 02:37 AM
This post reminded me of when I first started doing yoga, the instructor called it practice. You practice yoga never expecting perfection, but what you receive is an exceptional gift to yourself. And that does "feel right" in almost everything you practice. Thanks Liz, just loved this post!
Posted by: Cyn | February 24, 2010 at 06:27 PM
Hi Liz,
Come to my post today. I think you'll like.
xxooT
Posted by: Theresa | March 01, 2010 at 03:57 AM