Knitting for Knaught

Here's a quick glimpse of this beret before I transform it back into a ball of yarn. Sigh. I've said it before, knitting does not come easy for me! My husband asks me why I do it since it creates so much frustration for me. Well, duh, I told him, because it's fun!

Since I first began knitting, I'm quite sure I've done as much, if not more, unknitting or ripping out as what I've knit. I generally choose quick projects, or at least they would be quick if everything went smoothly. My problem, I've decided, is that I expect too much too soon. Though I did teach myself to knit nearly three years ago, I've not really done all that much knitting in that time. I barely knit anything the first year, then shelved my needles for months at a time between projects. Now I'm gung ho to knit, knit, knit and expecting to produce the same quality of knitting as others I know who've knit that length of time, but the reality is, I've not had enough practice to get that good yet. I'm working on it, though.

Just as in life, knitting takes patience.

The problem I have with this beret pattern is that the ribbed band edging is too large. I did try it on a time or two early on and it didn't seem that big before there was more hat to it; and yes, I did do a gauge swatch and my gauge is good.

Another thing I don't like about this pattern is that it doesn't seem to have enough increases to suit me. To look like I think a beret should look, it seems it should get a little bigger before it starts getting smaller. I guess I should give myself a break in that it's not really my knitting or even my understanding the pattern that is the problem so much as I'm just not too crazy about this pattern. Granted, more knitting experience might have revealed this fact to me before I got so far along, or possibly even before I began to knit it at all.

Despite my seeming complaints above, I'm not terribly frustrated that I'm having to rip this out and have all my hours of knitting wasted (and trust me, it was hours, 'cause I'm slow). I realize the practice I'm getting is putting me that much closer to catching up with the likes of the many knitters in blogland who's knitting skills I admire.

There's more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!

~Romans 5:3-5 (the Message)