Just a Few Reminders to Myself

So today I attempted to arm-knit a 30-minute infinity scarf. I actually didn’t initially find the project on Pinterest. Rather, my real-life cousins were making them at our Christmas family gathering this year. I wanted to join in, but it seemed important at the time to teach the boys to play Yahtzee. I asked for a point in the right direction and figured I could always look it up online. Yesterday, I found some beautiful yarn that I thought/still think is the right size and determined that I would whip up a birthday gift for tomorrow right quick. So, here’s how that went and a few tidbits I learned along the way:

1. There is no possible way that you will ever complete a thirty-minute anything-crafty in the allotted thirty minutes. Simply not going to happen. (I actually knew this one already, but still I had hope that it would maybe be a ninety-minute infinity scarf? Nope, not that either.)

2. The teachers that you find on YouTube are surprisingly patient. They don’t roll their eyes or sound exasperated even the fifteenth or eighteenth time they demonstrate how to tie a slip knot or cast on or knit.

3. However, they are also freakishly committed to doing things just the one way. I was not understanding how the gal was tightening her stitches, and not once did she even try to do it a different way; she just kept doing the same thing over and over and over every single time I rewound the video. Also, she offered no help when I cast on twelve stitches but ended up with sixteen.

4. It’s times like this that not being a perfectionist really pays off.

5. It also helps to have a carpool buddy that is willing to switch it up last minute so that you can continue what little momentum you may have. (Although in retrospect, it might have been good to set the knitting down and take a break to go pick up the kids.)

6. All those things for which you distractedly tell your toddler “yes”? Yeah, those are going to bite you in the butt.

7. And the things you tell your preschooler you’ll do with him in “ten minutes when I’m done”? Those too.

8. You may find if you knit loosely enough, your finished project will not look like a scarf at all but just a bunch of yarn draped around your neck. As Tim Gunn would say, “Well, if that’s the look you want, you sure have a good one.”

9. Later, if you decide you might like a photo to go with your blog entry about the misadventure, keep in mind that your preschooler will not have interest in taking forty shots of you with “more face,” “now less face,” “scarf in focus” (what’s “focus?” he asks).

10. And if you want a photo without a double chin, with lipstick, without eyes, clean mirror, in focus, maybe some twinkly lights bokeh, ‘oh wait! I forgot earrings!’ ain’t nobody got time for that.

11. Amazon sells gift certificates.

And a bonus word to the wise:

11. If after you’ve put away the “scarf” (or whatever it is the yarn became) and all the things your daughter taped and/or half-ate while you “knit” (or whatever it was you were doing), your son then asks you to do the 1,000-piece puzzle with him, listen to that voice in your head that tells you that even though he loves puzzles, he isn’t ready. He will insist. He will say he’s big enough. He will try to kill you with shards when he says, “But Mommy! It’s just that I love doing puzzles with you!” Resist!