Quitting Can Be Difficult...But Also Necessary

Yesterday I finished reading (or rather listening to) Think Like a Freak, the third book by the authors of Freakonomics. I greatly enjoyed the book, but one chapter in particular resonated with me. It was a chapter on not being afraid to quit something--that the idea that quitting is always bad is actually not accurate. And I realized that there is something that I need to quit. What might that be?

I need to quit the Christmas tree skirt that I'm currently knitting. It's just not working. I knew that from close to the beginning but kept telling myself that it would be okay. Had I listened to myself back then, I would have saved so many hours of work. But I'm going to listen to myself now and not waste anymore hours working on a project that just isn't working. First, some back story.

Last year at Christmas was the first time we've put up a Christmas tree in our own house. When we were first married, we used the cat(s) as an excuse and then when we were living in Indiana, we spent over two weeks around the holidays traveling to visit family so it seemed pointless to go through the trouble of putting up a tree when we weren't even going to be home to enjoy it. But now that we're back in Texas and near family, we actually get to be at our own home for the holidays (which is such a wonderful feeling). So we finally put up a Christmas tree.

I thought it would be a great idea to knit a Christmas tree skirt. I looked around on Ravelry to see if I could find a pattern. What I really wanted was a cream-colored, cabled tree skirt. But I didn't really see the cabled pattern that grabbed me. So I thought that I might create my own (note that this is before I started regularly releasing my own patterns). The day after Thanksgiving, Madtosh Crafts had a huge (30% off!) sale and I bought the yarn for the tree skirt: 9 skeins of tosh chunky (which despite its name is an aran weight yarn) in Antler (my perfect cream-colored yarn). And I thought about the tree skirt. And thought about it. But didn't sit down to really work on it until August of this year.

I poured through stitch dictionaries. I learned all about the pi shawl, which I was using as a base for the tree skirt. I crunched lots of numbers. I wrote out charts. And then I started knitting.

Since much of the background is in purl, I was a bit unsure at the increase rows. Which increase might work best? I think I did a kfb for the first increase round--mostly because I didn't really think it through but knew I didn't want anything that would leave holes (like yarn overs). I wasn't super happy with how it turned out but didn't think it was too bad. I think that I did that same increase again the next time (although I'm not 100% sure). And that's when I knew that I really needed to sit down and figure out which increase to use and how best to transition between patterns. But for some reason, I told myself that I really didn't need to do that. It was fine and I'd just figure that stuff out before I wrote down the pattern so that other knitters could have a better tree skirt.

But this is what it looked like:

Can you see the row of Vs (knit stitches) in between the purl rows at the transition? Yeah, it's even more obvious on the actual item. But I just kept going. And I tried doing a different increase the next time. This one was more purl based (right now I can't remember exactly what I did although I jotted down a note about it somewhere). But this time I didn't account for the cables. So where the knit stitches on the cables could have transitioned pretty well between cable patterns, I instead have some purl bumps that show up. I did this twice! I guess I didn't learn the first time.

Look at those purl bumps at the base of the cable! Again, the picture doesn't truly show how obvious this is in the actual item. I also realized that for this new section, I hadn't accounted for the beginning/end of round connection and the cables which connected everywhere else on the round were unconnected at the join (I know what I did wrong but decided to ignore this, too).

But I just kept going. Until I listened to Think Like a Freak while knitting this tree skirt and realized that I did have something that I needed to quit. Something that would be better off if I threw in the towel (or the tree skirt).

Do I still want a cabled Christmas tree skirt? Yes, absolutely. Do I still want to use these particular cables? Pretty much, although I might change a little especially at the beginning. But what I really need to do is frog what I've done (!!!), sit down and do more swatching, not just of the individual cables (which I had done) but of the transitions between the cables (both the increases as well as how the cables will flow into one another). I need to figure out the best method for doing the increases that will not make an obvious transition but will create a more natural flow.

I haven't frogged yet. I've put it in the drawer alongside the sweater I know I should frog but don't yet have the heart to do. But just making the decision that it's not working and needs to be started over was a big one, so I'm letting myself get a little distance from the project before I dive back into it.

Here's the tree skirt minus a few of the rounds that I did this week:

Goodbye tree skirt progress. Goodbye many many knitting hours. But hello new and improved project that will be forthcoming. Quitting isn't always bad. Sometimes it really is necessary so you can move on to something better.