Learning from My Mistakes

I'm currently teaching a 3-part class at Janie H. Knits in Perth, Ontario on my recently published design, Sandridge. I consider myself a "morning person", but really, I wasn't looking forward to getting myself up at the crack of dawn and driving for a little over an hour to teach on a Saturday morning. However, once I hit the road with some Tim's steeped tea, and got into cottage country with its lakes, pines, and rocks, all amidst the early fall colours, it was hard not to be in a good mood.

The class is knitting the A-line version of Sandridge and I'm making a new sweater for myself in cream-coloured alpaca/wool. The problem is, I'm one of those knitters who can't do more than one thing at a time. I can knit. I can talk. But I can't knit and talk at the same time. So, of course, while the class was knitting away at a great pace, with wonderful enthusiasm, I put my work down to explain something, picked it up mid-row, and started back the wrong way, creating an unintentional short row. Unfortunately, I failed to notice this until several (long) rows later. I ended up doing a very lovely demonstration of how to take your work off the needles, put it back on, and carry on. Turns out that that was the highlight of the lesson for Nancy, who pointed out that my mistake had helped her to relax and realize that even so-called experts mess up. I pointed out to her that I actually mess up rather a lot and  I just consider it part of the knitting process.