Not even close
From time to time, I’ll post a picture on instagram or on the blog, and someone will say some variation of ‘oh my goodness, your knitting is so perfect, mine never looks like that.’ And this is very very sweet…but absolutely not true. My knitting is somewhere around middling to fair.
Now, I am pretty good at blocking, and blocking is a huge part of making your finished knitting look great (that’s why I’ve done so many posts about how to block stuff…I really really really want you to be blocking your projects). And I do have a slightly fancy camera, and that helps everything look all spiffy. But the knitting? The stuff hanging off my needles at any given moment? Yeah that’s not all that special. And it is totally not perfect.
Want proof?
See that? That’s a rogue purl stitch way back on row 3 or so of the now finished hat. I didn’t notice it because it’s on the inside when you’re knitting (meaning it only shows when you turn the brim up at the end). And the way that stitch pattern works, laddering down to fix a stitch isn’t really practical. So I’m just going to leave it. I’ll make sure that’s in the back for the pattern photos, and no one will ever notice when it’s on my head. If I really really really cared, I could duplicate stitch over it. But I totally don’t.
And here’s another one. I actually didn’t notice this until I was checking the ravelry listing for Constellate to show someone a picture, but one of the stitch groups in the very first row is off center. It even shows in the pattern photo. Now, lots of folks have bought and made that pattern. And no one has yet written in to say that one little group of stitches is off by one stitch and this totally ruined their whole project/life/day. No one has stopped me on the street to tell me it’s wrong (to tell me it’s cute, sure, but not to tell me it’s wrong). So my suspicion is that it’s really not that big a deal.
So I’m going to encourage you to maybe give yourself a break. Your knitting is probably better than your give yourself credit for (and my knitting is for sure less perfect than you think). Everyone makes the occasional mistake, and I promise it’s ok. Your work is still awesome, and you should still feel good about it. Take the time you were going to spend fretting and spend it blocking instead. I promise it will make more of a difference!
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