Tuesday 3 June 2014

Frustration and futility

Puzzling over a crochet pattern. One of those projects which you start, get quite a lot done, put down for a while, pick it up again, forget where you were up to, and therefore must spend a disproportionate amount of time trying to work out where you were.. And not necessarily succeeding. Quel horreur. Very frustrating.

Then you remember the days when you just got things done, and did a multiplicity of things in a short time.

What mucks all this up (apart from age and decrepitude)? Interruptions, that's what, planned, unplanned, and involuntary.  The phone rings, or it is time to go out, you fall asleep over a book.

 In between crocheting squares in a challenging shade of orange, I picked up a piece of crochet I  started some aeons ago.  Brain rot has obviously set in, as I cannot get the pattern right. It might be best to cut my losses and start again. Is it all worth it? It is making me very cranky. Patterns are not always written very clearly. This pattern talks in terms of repeating Row whatever, which is all very well if you have worked out where you were up to, the last time you tackled this piece of work.

Would it be better to undo it all, and start all over sgain. And, if so, what are the chances of getting it right the next time? And what happens if you are not sure whether you like the finished product? Did the concept of cost effectiveness originate with pattern instructions? I bet it did, but the lesson has not been understood, let alone learned, and broadcast into the ether. Or absorbed into one's innermost psyche.

 I do not want to waste the wool, let alone all the time and effort. This particular yarn is variegated. You cannot tell how it will look. What looked as though it was a combination of purple, green and in between seems, as it is crocheted, to have a disturbing amount of brown. Brown! I certainly did not select brown! Who likes brown? Not me!

 And the lovely wool shop is having a sale right now. As I was in the city, meeting a friend, afterwards I went to see what was on offer. Sadly, I came away with nothing. The colours were not quite right. The ply was wrong. No patterns leapt out and sang ' make me, make me!' I left empty handed.  Needs must check the stash of yarns, calculate actuarily (?) the crocheting years remaining, and the prospective amount of completed projects, and perform some unpleasant probability analyses. But I had some pleasant chats with other women contemplating succumbing to temptation.

No wonder I crochet so many squares, to make blankets for refugees. That is work with both purpose and result.

1 comment:

Elephant's Child said...

Blankets for refugees is a wonderful project. The combination of physical and metaphorical warmth and beauty is a winner. A huge winner.