It is so easy to post about my successes, but I have a difficult time admitting my mistakes. Here are two mistakes that have kept me from posting for over two weeks! Yes, I've been having difficulty with Stella Alpina. Why? I've tatted this doily several times, so it's not that I'm unfamiliar with the pattern. I've cut out or retro-tatted at least six sections of this doily. I thought I was nearly at the end, when I discovered that I had missed a join in the very first section! I tried fixing it without cutting out the offending section, but it just didn't work. I ran out of thread on one of the shuttles, so I just cut off the whole thing, and I'm setting it aside until later. I love the color. I love the doily... but, I can't stand the mistakes!
Yesterday, I decided that I would enter the 25 Motif Challenge for a third time to help me focus. Since I've been having such a hard time reading patterns, I thought I'd turn to one of my favorite little books, Tatting by Myra Piper. Simple, right? Wrong! I was doing fine until the end of the motif. I took out the next to the last ring four times before I realized that I didn't need to make the join I was trying to make! I was tatting away merrily this morning, loving the thunderstorm outside, and when I finished I cut my threads so that I could tie off the motif. That's when I noticed I hadn't completed the motif!
Thank goodness, I have a Spinning Wheel glass mat in progress to help me de-stress!
I've managed to make myself ignore some mistakes. If I've just left out or added a picot and a few stitches, for example, and it's way far back, I just take a deep breath and keep going. This is hard for me, but I make myself because I think I need to learn to be less of a perfectionist overall. Of course, if it's going to affect another join later on, or if I'm making a gift or something to enter in a competition, then I have to go back and fix it no matter what.
ReplyDeleteThat's how I end up with lots of little bits of patterns scattered around. I keep them thinking maybe I could combine them in different ways and come up with a "Frankenstein Monster" of a pattern. :)
ReplyDeleteIt's good to have a favorite piece to de-stress with!
You know Myra's designs need to be rewritten and diagrammed, don't you? LOL! I guess that's one way to make yourself focus....or get really frustrated.
ReplyDeleteI can usually deal with a forgotten or added picot. You can always join whether there is a picot there or not, but sometimes it does throw the whole thing off. If I'm repeatedly making a mistake, I just leave it for awhile. Sometimes I change my mind about the thread or the pattern in relation to the thread or am just clearer with the distance of time. And this is usually when I decided to focus on something besides tatting too.
You'll get it all sorted out. You always do!
LOL! You sre having the time I had a few weeks ago! NOT FUN! So much cutting and cursing....
ReplyDeleteThis does end though, and you get back to actually enjoying yourself, having the end result, if not perfect, perfectly acceptable!
Hank in three! Great typo for yarn handlers so I left it! LOL!
Fox : )
Is that Spinning Wheel glass mat being tatted using LadyShuttlemaker's Witches Brew? (I love that colorway!) And bravo for using the larger Tatsy shuttles!
ReplyDeleteI use them too to "warm up" my long fingers and to hold large amounts of thread for a larger project.
Since I have not yet attempted a Spinning Wheel glass mat, does it require the larger shuttles to get through the whole pattern without running out of thread?
Well it seems all is not lost, at least it is coming along, and I love the colour that you have chosen!!!
ReplyDeleteBeen there! I throw projects like that in a hat box and ignore them. If they are very bad, I trash them before I can change my mind. Some days I can admit to having enjoyed the way I spent my time even if I have nothing good to show for it. Other days, I just have to put it all away before it drives me insane.
ReplyDeleteOh, one more thing. I usually find that if I'm making a lot of mistakes, that is a good sign that it's bedtime. :) When I come back to it the next day, everything is usually fine.
ReplyDelete