Picking Up the Pieces
Rebecca Cornwell, Public Engagement Officer, School of Biology shares her love of knitting and what it has taught her about failure. In life, as with knitting, you can always pick up the pieces and mend the tears.
But I fell in love with another Shetland shawl pattern… with another steek. I was confident, but as I cut the steek, something was amiss, stitches disintegrated, and it rapidly started to unravel. I still don’t know what went wrong this time. Lots of tears and self-criticism followed; I even blamed the poor sheep responsible for the wool. Just about resisting the urge to bin the whole project, I carefully put it aside instead and gave it a little time. When I cautiously returned to the shawl, the priority was to stop the situation from getting any worse. I mitigated the damage as best as possible and tried to accept that this was going to be a slow process. Anchoring the unravelling by sewing an extra thread along the precarious edge allowed me to painstakingly pick up enough stitches to form a firm enough barrier to safely hold the once-fragile seam. The shawl did eventually get finished and I discovered I still loved it, but I vowed I would never tackle a steeked shawl again. In knitting, there’s officially a “right side” and a “wrong side.” The “right side” faces outward for the world to see, while the (somewhat judgementally termed) “wrong side” is within, messy in comparison and usually hidden. Yet, these sides are interwoven. The essential messy side carefully carries the threads that create the patterns, secures loose ends, and is where seams give structure and strength to the work. It is due care and attention to the messy side that stops everything completely falling apart.
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