Frogging, Tinking and Knitting On
For those of you who don’t knit, the title of this post may lead you to think I’ve lost it, that this latest period of hardship and isolation has finally led me to the brink. Ah! Far from it. Let me explain.
I have been a knitter since I was 5 when, at my insistence, my mother taught me to knit. My devotion to the craft waxed and waned over the years, until 2001 when I became a truly devoted knitter, took lots of lessons, honed my craft, and worked hard at becoming an “expert” knitter. Each lesson, each project taught me something… not only about knitting, but each has also given me valuable lessons on life and living; on crafting a life of purpose and beauty, of care and love.
In knitting, “frogging” is the process of ripping out an entire section of knitting, or even a whole project. The term comes from “ripping” out the project, or “rip it, rip it, rip it”- yes, much like a frog’s croaking. To tink is to undo a few stitches, or a row or two, one stitch at a time; tink is knit spelled backwards. Thus, frogging and tinking are about undoing and redoing; about going back, looking at what went wrong, and starting over. I’ve come to see that frogging and tinking are a valuable skills in life as much as in knitting.
My current knitting project is a shawl. A lace shawl from a kit gifted to me by one of my daughters last Christmas. An insufferably difficult, woefully complicated shawl. But a wondrously beautiful lace shawl, one that will be amazingly lovely if I can ever get it right. Of course, not all projects require that it be “just right”. When I taught knitting to beginners, and my students would get frustrated or discouraged because of mistakes they’d made, I would look at the work and realize it was most often not a critical mistake, and likely, no one would ever notice. In encouragement, my stock response would be: “There are no mistakes in knitting; there are only design elements”. The student would smile, be encouraged, and knit on. That was the point - to knit on.
But this? This stubborn collection of knits and purls and yarn overs and slip-slip-knits and knit-two-together stitches? Not so easily placated, I’m afraid. In a lace shawl, in some patterns, one minor error will alter the whole design; one missed stitch will scream from the middle of the row, - “Hey! I’m not right! You’ve got it all wrong! This won’t work!” I’m at such a place right now. This morning, I was tinking a lace-knit row for the third time! The same row - and just for the record - the 95th row. For the third time. And mind you, this row has 192 stitches! Undoing the row stitch by stitch means going backwards and removing the yarn-overs and restoring knit-togethers and slip-slip-knits back to their separate places. After three tries, I had finally figured out what I had done wrong (for the first two times), and I am getting ready to start over again.
So, you say. So what? Here’s the revelation. As I was doing this, I couldn’t help but think about how frogging and tinking to get a pattern just right is a lot like life. Sometimes, it’s necessary to stop knitting, and look back at the pattern and as we often say in the craft, “read the knitting”. It’s a process of examining and carefully looking at what’s been done, slowly counting stitches, and painstakingly assessing what the knitting is “saying”. Is it right? Is it incorrect? And if it’s wrong, what do I do to fix it?
Sometimes, there is no need to correct a mistake; it has become a design element, and it sits quietly in the pattern, simply sinking into the companionship of it’s neighbors, quietly fitting in, making not a sound. Much like our lives. When we look back and “read” our memories, or the things we’ve done, or the places we’ve been, it’s often not possible to “tink” or “frog” the incident, the mistake. It simply sits there, quietly minding it’s own business. And that’s when we should feel as if we can perhaps forgive ourselves, and move on.
But there are some mistakes, some life-directions that simply won’t stay quiet. They niggle. They itch and burn. They insinuate themselves into the life-thread of where we are now, and it’s uncomfortable. Sometimes they scream out with indignation “Fix me!” Often, it is not so much a mistake as a wrong turn, or a road taken that goes nowhere. It is at these times that we must stop for a moment, look back and “read our knitting”. What is bothering us? Do we like the pattern emerging? Is there a place that we can return to to “fix” whatever is seems wrong, out of place? Of course, in life, sometimes it’s not that easy to fix a mistake. A harsh word to a friend or family member cannot be undone; sometimes it is an error seen years after the event, and too much time has gone by; or a death has altered the pattern forever. It’s not always possible to get a do-over in life. Life cannot be “frogged” and started over from scratch. But tinking? That we can do- sometimes.
Just as in knitting, it’s important to sometimes return to the pattern of our life, and see where the knitting has gone wrong. When I’ve noted a pattern gone off the rails in my knitting, my first inclination has often been “There’s something wrong with the pattern; the designer made a mistake. It makes no sense!” Or “My yarn must be wrong for this pattern”, or “My knitting gauge is off; stupid needles... stupid yarn...”. But it’s rare that a pattern-gone-wrong is someone else’s fault. Most often, the mistake, the wrong or dropped stitch has been my own fault, either because I wasn’t paying attention, I didn’t read the directions correctly, or because I was cocky and skipped tried and true practices that prevent such problems. In life, it’s not much different. Very often, we are our own worst enemies, our dropped and wrong stitches the result of our pride, or neglect or stubbornness. But with some tinking, we can often fix that dropped stitch; that backward purl stitch. A neglected friend or sister can be “picked up”, righted and put back on the needle, brought back into the pattern of our lives. A row gone wrong can be corrected. I go back, look at what I’ve done wrong, and figure out a way to make it right. If I’m true to myself and to the instructions, the pattern will emerge from the seemingly random stitches, and my shawl, my life, will become a finished work of art.
And as in knitting, it takes perseverance, patience - and yes - courage, to go back into the past events of our lives, and see what - if anything - should be tinked. In these days of self-distancing, schedules slowed to standstill breaths, and norms gone out of kilter… I’ve had a rare opportunity to look back, to assess, to “read the knitting” of my life. Some stitches that weren’t part of the pattern seem content, and they add a beautiful dimension to my life, a design element. Others? Not so much. So I look at what doesn’t seem right, what is discordant in my life pattern, and tink with the stitches to make it right. It’s important to welcome these opportunities as a gift of time and space to observe, evaluate, and tink back to a place where I can fix the pattern, change a stitch or two, adjust the gauge. I frog, tink and knit on.
There’s a hand-painted sign in my knitting/sewing room: “I do it for the joy it brings”. Whether I’m knitting or tinking, the pattern will eventually emerge as a beautiful lace of people and events, of loves and lives - and that’s time, in my humble opinion, well spent.