Doing the Next Right Thing

In this episode, I talk about how do the next right thing, in my knitting and in my life.  Right now I'm faced with two projects that are not going as planned and I need to decide whether to frog or forge ahead and I talk about how these small decisions connect to  bigger ones in my life.

Transcript

[instrumental intro music, upbeat with trills and bells 

Music Credit: Ketsa, “Day Trips”]

Holly 00:30

Good morning! Hello! How are you? It's so good to be talking with you. It's Sunday morning and it's rainy and gray and kind of yucky and I probably have to get moving on my day but I wanted to jump on here and say a quick hello and talk with you a little bit about making decisions. So I am currently mid-project and I was so excited about this project and... it's not going well (laughter). It's been forcing me to really think through, you know, what the next right thing to do is and... that is of course an important part of 12-step program. So I wanted to come on here and talk a little bit about this. So welcome. I am so happy you're here.

Holly 01:32

I'm Holly and I've been doing this podcast for about a year now and I'm so so grateful for this community and for anyone who is spending a bit of time to listen to me ramble about recovery and crafting. It is so helpful to me to share here so thank you. As a quick reminder, one of the principles of 12-step programs, and specifically the one I participate in which is Al-Anon, is that you take what you like and you leave the rest. I very much encourage you to do that with this podcast. I'm only speaking here about my own personal story and my own personal experience and, you know, your mileage may vary. This is just my experience and I hope that you find something useful here, whether  you're just here for the knitting or if you're like me, someone who loves another person who struggles from an addiction and someone who uses knitting and crafting to kind of help stay...serene. I was going to say stay sane but I don’t want to be disrespectful. Anyway, welcome and thank you.

Holly 02:50

My problem today is that, you know, I was very very excited about these two projects and they are not going the way I thought they would and that has me thinking about expectations. One is sewing and the other is knitting and I'll start with sewing. I had ordered this packet of vintage patterns and I found one that looked kind of similar to new styles. It had this 80s vibe. Kind of flouncy. I think it's all that influence the crown and Princess Diana and early 80s fashion. So this has that vibe, you know poofy sleeves and flounch gathers and  just very sweet. And I had some fabric in my stash that I got pretty affordably that I've had it now for about a year or so, so I thought why not work it up. I found this other fabric with a retro print in Cotton and Steel quilting cotton-- I probably should have known this would not go well--but it was such a cute pattern and it was affordable for yardage from a really quality company. Anyway, I figured why not? 

Holly 04:18

And I did everything right! I toiled the pattern. Of course I made a few silly mistakes but I took my time. I stopped when I got tired. And I sewed slowly. And now I am at that point where you can try it on and I’m like...meh. womp womp. This was not worth the effort. That is what I thought to myself. And I don't know what I was expecting but it wasn't this and I wanted to talk about that today. I even texted a friend looking for reassurance that this is part of the process. It’s normal to get to a point where you absolutely hate the thing you made that you spent all this time on and you just put it away and want to forget about it. That’s where I am on the sewing project.

Holly 05:32

The second project that I'm working on is a pair of socks and I love the yarn and I love the pattern; but I'm not sure I am loving the connection between the two. And again I thought I did everything right. I really thought about the pattern, which is a cable pattern. The yarn is a 3-ply yarn, which is what you want for a cable pattern. The odd number of plies make the cable pop. So if you want something to kind of stick out, you want that odd number of plies. And so this has that; it's a sock yarn and it's a really nice sock yarn. It's a nice color and I just thought oh it'll be great. But the problem that I'm having is that it's a little bit thicker; it's a fingering weight but it's kind of more towards the sport side. So it’s looking super chunky. I'm not quite sure that was what I was envisioning when I cast on. And that, again, (laughter) seems maybe like it might be related to the work I need to do in recovery. So much of my depression comes from this disjuncture about what I expected would happen and what in reality is happening and that's hard. Right, in my head (laughter), everything's going to look amazing or I'm going to work really hard and there's going to be a really wonderful payoff but even when things go well it doesn't quite live up to what I was expecting. And of course when it goes wrong, it's certainly not living up to my expectations. So I’m going to take some time off from both projects and I'm trying to regroup. 

Holly 07:27

Now,I have some strategies and this comes from crafting. Like I'm going to apply crafting lessons to recovery; I think I going to reverse engineer this. I’m going to take the things I've learned from knitting and bring it to Al-Anon, which is my own personal program. I'm not saying you should do this but I'm doing thi. So one of the things I've learned is that sometimes you’ve got to keep going and sometimes you've got to stop. Right, and like that is so simple. (laughter) You gotta know when to hold'em, you gotta know when to fold them (laughter) but it’s true. And the devil's in the details, right? That's the real trick: how do you know when to quit and how do you know when to forge on? Or to put it much more poignant, and really painstaking for me,  was the decision: should I stay with my partner or should I go? How much is too much? And that was such a massive issue for me. That was like many years in the making and one of the things that helped me both in the small-scale with my projects and also with this big life decision is that you'll know when you know when it's clear and until then you just keep trying to do the next right step. Do the next right thing. And the next right thing, until it’s clear.

Holly 08:56

And that's really what I'm going to practice today with my weird sewing projects and with my knitting. I'm not yet sure that the yarn and the pattern is off; the cable is popping. There might just be a problem of my expectations. It might just be a problem of perspective, like right now I want it to look one way and it's actually looking wonderfully in its own way and I just can't get over that disconnect.  And so with time, you know, I should keep plugging away on the project, as long as the knitting is continuing to give me joy, which I mean I love cable patterns so who cares that I might not love these. Right now I think the process is worthwhile and I should keep going with it and maybe with time, after I set them aside, I’ll find that these are actually really lovely in their own iteration and whatever I thought I wanted was not what I wanted and in actuality it is this. This version, in real life, is enough.

Holly 10:04

But it might be that some decisions need to be made, which brings me to my weird Diana sewing project and there are some decisions that need to be made. And they’re not the decisions I anticipated. So I thought that I would want the floaty fabric to be a super-long maxi dress. With sewing, I feel like there are two options for me: cut it really short and make it into a top or add a giant ruffle and make it into a dress. Right now it's like tunic length, so it's like either go short or go long. So I think that's the answer. I thought that I’d want the floaty fabric to be the one that was long, but I think that's wrong. I think I want to cut that one really short and make it into a kind of cute top that is sort of wearable on Saturdays. It is not necessarily for work or anything like that but of course every day is now a Saturday for work right now since I’m always working from home still so why not?  I think I might be Zoom appropriate and I think that's my plan for that is to cut it.

Holly 11:08

And then for the other one, the cotton one, well I did not think going long was the way to go but I think the color and everything just might work. I think it might be old-fashioned enough in the fabric that it'll kind of work, since it means I’m going to double down on the 80s style with the pattern and fabric choice. So I think I'm going to add the ruffle to that version. So that’s where I am right now. I'm going to add the ruffle to quilting cotton one and hack the floaty dress into a top and then finish them up so that they're totally wearable and then stick them in my closet and not look at them for a while and decide later if these are wearable or not when I have clarity of perspective.

Holly 11:47

And so for me, that's kind of where I'm at right now; I’m at this crossroads right now.  On one project the task is to keep going and stay stay on course; and the other one it is to make some decisions and live with those decisions. At the end of the day this project might be a total bust. If so, I will not have lost not very much. I’ll have gained some some confidence in my ability to make decisions. So that's where I'm at right now. 

Holly 12:18

One of the things I am finding really helpful is that if I just do the next right thing, I get further in the projects, especially if there are certain points where I do need to forge ahead. This helps me to do the tricky thing, like, say, turn the heel in a pair of socks, so that the project doesn't languish as an unfinished object. There are other times when I just need to set that project aside and give it some breathing room, such as with buttonholes. You do not want to push ahead on buttonholes, for example. But again that's really about trusting my instincts. I certainly do that in terms of the other practice of crafting and I'm learning how to do that in my life. It’s good to practice this so that it’s easier when I need to make a decision in my life, whether it's financial or whether it's about my kids schooling or whether it's about my emotional needs or whether it's really big life-changing decision like the ones I've made in the past year about how I'm going to protect myself from this really baffling, cunning, and progressive disease of alcoholism. They were hard decisions and I'm learning to live with the consequences. 

Holly 13:28

So I think I'll stop there. Maybe I'll pick this topic up again later because I think this has a lot to do with where I'm at in step four, making inventories, and kind of going through my staff and finally just cutting into some fabric that I, for whatever reason, find too precious to use. But they're bigger topics and I've rambled long enough. 

Holly 13:54

I just want to thank you again for being here. I want to wish you the happiest of Sundays and to encourage you to trust your instincts, whether it's to forge ahead or whether it’s to cut, frog, or  unravel. Because, again, really that's just the work of crafting and the work of life, so wherever you are, I hope you have some beautiful materials to work with. I hope your projects are bringing you a lot of joy, whether they're in the puzzle stage or whether they're in the zen zone out and enjoy it stage. 

Holly 14:33

Take care and I will talk to you soon! Bye!

Music Outro [instrumental upbeat music with trills and bells; Music credit Ketsa “Day Trips”]