{"id":6087,"date":"2021-03-06T08:04:26","date_gmt":"2021-03-06T07:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/waltin.se\/josefinwaltinspinner\/?p=6087"},"modified":"2021-03-06T08:04:28","modified_gmt":"2021-03-06T07:04:28","slug":"embrace-your-mistakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/waltin.se\/josefinwaltinspinner\/embrace-your-mistakes\/","title":{"rendered":"Embrace your mistakes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At the moment I’m teaching a digital course in wool knowledge to a spinning group in Sweden. At last week’s lecture I talked about analyzing the wool characteristics of a fleece. One student , E, said she was a beginner and didn’t know what can be expected by a characteristic. Her question gave me a lot to think about. I want to turn her concern around and highlight the superpowers of working in a new field. Today I want you to embrace your mistakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes it can be frustrating to be a beginner. For me just as for anyone else. The feeling of shortcomings in a group where you feel everybody else knows way more than you do can be discouraging. In moments like these I choose to flip the whole thing around and see the superpowers in being a beginner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"My
My very first skein of handspun yarn. Fine finull lamb’s wool, hand carded on rusty cards and plied with some fawn alpaca since I didn’t have enough fleece.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Embrace your mistakes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To understand something craft related I need to feel it. If there is a rule, like “don’t use a woolen spun yarn for warp” or “a two-end knitting yarn needs to be firm” I need to experience the consequences. When I have lived it and learned it I can make progress with that lesson in the back of my head and, most importantly, in the memory of my hands. I can also experiment with the boundaries of that rule. Can I use a woolen spun yarn for a very loose sett? What is too soft in a two-end knitting yarn?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Soft
Soft and thin yarn from very fine finull lamb’s wool, spun in 2012. Way too soft for two-end knitting.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Deriving the rules<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One of the superpowers of being a beginner is that I don’t know the rules. Or, perhaps I have heard of the rules, but mostly in the terms of “Don’t do this, or that will happen”. I need to see and feel for myself to understand why it is wise to go one way instead of the other. I need to learn the mistakes through my hands. Sort of like deriving pythagoras’ theorem to understand why<\/em> it works. When I don’t know the rules I am most likely to break them and learn something along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Too soft two-end knitting yarn<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

When I held a spindle in my hand for the first time, on my first spinning lesson, I wanted to spin a Z-plied yarn for two-end knitting. There’s an optimistic attitude for ya! Two-end knitting didn’t happen with that first yarn, but a while later I did make a Z-plied yarn. From the softest finull<\/a> lamb’s fleece (first beginner’s mistake). Way underspun (second beginner’s mistake). But I didn’t realize that until I had started my two-end knitting project. The yarn broke over and over, but I kept knitting. I did end up with a pair of mittens (fulled, I might add) that I used daily for many winters. When the thumbs needed mending I mended. I am still proud of the mittens and I embrace the mistakes I made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The Swedish finewool sheep Pia-Lotta. The mittens are two-end knitted from yarn I spun from Pia-Lotta’s lamb’s fleece. Photo by Dan Waltin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sock string<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The opposite happened with my recent sock yarn<\/a>. I wanted to make the yarn durable but ended up with string in my first try. But I learned from that, tried again, and succeeded with a softer, but still strong sock yarn. I don’t want to unlearn that lesson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n