Lucky Pieces and life lessons

April 20, 2021

This last week i've started knitting Lucky Pieces from the latest issue of Pom Pom Quarterly. I sat down, cast my eyes over the instructions, and excitedly started knitting. I couldn't wait to see the pattern emerge from the entrelac shapes, turning from squares into rectangles then bright pinwheels against the neutral ground.

A back view of Lucky Pieces, an entrelac pattern making up a series of crosses on a light background

But. But. 

Having never knit entrelac before, and being anxious to get started, I didn't read the instructions properly. I read the first section, followed the guidance, and didn't read further. Such was my downfall ... and regret.
A collection of triangles in bright yarns on a circular needle
I hadn't read the instructions properly. So I ended up with this beautiful mess of ends, and unconnected triangles. At some point in this process, I thought maybe I had it wrong, but kept going anyway...only to eventually think I really should double check. To find that yes, I had mis-read and got it all wrong. 

Which is a great life lesson, one taught repeatedly to us through craft. Sometimes we don't quite understand the instructions. Sometimes we think they say one thing because that's what we are expecting, when really the designer wants to take us in a different direction. Realising we got it wrong can be frustrating and feel like we've wasted time, or somehow failed. But there's much to be said in sharing failure. 

Sometimes, we get stuff wrong. The important part is understanding where we went wrong, learning from it, and trying again. It's how we learn. Even in the beautiful mess, I started to learn about the technique and the basic theory of how to form the shapes. So it wasn't a complete loss. 
Close up for the first two rows of entrelac knitting in grey and bright colours
There's still a mistake here, but this time I know I can go back and fix it. I've been re-using the yarn from the beautiful mistake to avoid wastage - especially as my goal for this project was to use up ends of yarn from previous FOs.
There's still a lot of ends to weave in as I learn the best way to manage all the colours within the entrelac structure. But i'm looking forward to watching this grow, and continuing to learn from my mistakes. 
New stuff has arrived this week!
The cover of Dawn Making issue 11 and two balls of Lopi in grey-blue and dark green

I finally managed to get my hands on a bit more Lettlopi, so have topped up all the colours I could, and added some new ones. If you're planning a project with Lopi this winter, I recommend getting in touch with the colour and quantity you're after so we can let you know when we can get more. 

Also being released this week is the new issue of Making! Jenny and I caught up today as she was packing your orders and we had a good flick through picking out all the projects we want to make. I love that it's a mix of all crafts, interesting stories and beautiful photography. The Dawn issue is uplifting and bright, and release date is this Friday. 
To end with today, I hope we wear our values on our sleeve here at HRYC. Sometimes it bears repeating though, so:
Covid is real - Black Lives Matter - Vaccines work - Trans women are women - Gender equity is well overdue - Racism is unacceptable - All work has value - And I could go on.

Sometimes I get stuff wrong. I believe that businesses should be held accountable and I certainly try to hold myself accountable. I make decisions about what we stock based on a range of criteria, and ethics is one of them. 

By the way - you are excellent, smart, funny, and have great stories to share. I appreciate your taking the time to read our updates, whether you shop with us or not. 

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