I bought a package of 7cm Styrofoam balls with the idea that I could knit custom made Christmas balls for my tree which is sorely lacking in the decoration department. They would be quick little knits that didn’t require a lot of technical finesse. Or so I thought.
I struggled for hours trying to complete the first ball. The yarn was dragging along my double pointed needles to the point where I was getting blisters from pushing the needles against my fingertips. After reaching the half way point I was tempted to throw the entire project in the garbage, but I kept on because the ornament was pretty cute.
Safe for kids and pets, they were personal to me and I really wanted to complete a test version before dedicating myself to an actual pattern.
By the time I completed the ornament I was completely fed up and doubting my knitting skills. Being self taught means I am constantly learning, and some projects are just beyond me. Then I took a closer look at the yarn I was using. It’s about 15 years old, ancient 2-ply yarn in acrylic.
The more I thought about it the more I was convinced that the problem didn’t actually lay with me at all, but my issues stemmed from using a poor quality product. The yarn was like trying to slide wax up and down the needles, and by the end my fingertips were bloody. It was horrible.
So the next day I bravely started a second Christmas ball, this time in the stash colours I wanted, using “good” yarn, or at least better. Still acrylic, but much newer.
It made a world of difference.
I’m on the colourwork portion already and the Christmas ball is just flying along. I’m not having any of the difficulties in doing my increases that I was previously. The yarn glides along the needle easily (as it should) and I’m not fighting with it. Of course that being said, I DID break a size 1 dpn because I was stressed out and gripping it too tight. Even our supplies have their breaking points (har) it seems. I’ll need to get myself a new one before too long, I use them for socks. It was disappointing, but I was incredibly pleased that the knitting itself is going very well and as it turned out I was right. The problem wasn’t me, it was the quality of the materials I was using.
Just because you fail at something doesn’t mean you should completely give up. Sometimes, changing just a single aspect can yield a very different and far more enjoyable result.