Mistakes/Lessons

Mistakes are great! Really they are. How can we ever learn a new way of doing something unless we have to undo a mistake. My crafting mistakes include dropping a stitch and not realising until 10 rows later or when I think I’ve cut my macrame cords to the ‘right’ length only to discover that the final product is 20cm shorter than I wanted it to be. These things are glitches, they happen to us all. Even the most accomplished crafters make mistakes; mistakes help us discover ways to fix something in a way that we may not have thought, one that makes it easier to do next time.

I have so many ideas for patterns and products and a lot of the time I make them as one-offs. I should write down all the patterns as I go, but I don’t. No excuses, I just don’t. Is this a mistake or is it simply my way of doing something. I like to wing it, sometimes in life in general, not just in my crafting. I quite often start with a pattern to get an idea, I then go off piste and do my own thing. I’ll change the colour scheme, try out a new stitch or use the yarn I’ve got available, not the one in the pattern. I’m not restrained by the ‘rules’ of a pattern, I’m creating my own challenges.

If I considered everything that doesn’t go to plan as a mistake (in the true sense of the word), I think I’d have given up a long time ago. Mistakes shouldn’t be seen as negative, they should be embraced as a learning opportunity. A very long time ago, one of my university tutors used a phrase that has stuck with me all my adult life - “It’s not trial and error, it’s trial and improvement”. 

Stay positive, keep making mistakes and keep improving!

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