Do Overs

Yesterday I mentioned that knitting is a Mindfulness practice for me, and my propensity to make mistakes if I don't stay mindful. Yep, last night as I was knitting my last set for the day, I looked down and ... DANG IT! I saw a glaring mistake about a set down. Obviously I drifted away without realizing it, and failed to check my work before I continued. Grrr.

Oh well, nothing to be done about it but take it out and do it over. Wisely, rather than attempt it last night when I was tired, I waited until this morning.

It was the first thought I had upon waking. I have to "frog it" (knitter's term for ripping out sections of work), or as I prefer to think of it: "tink" -- the reverse of knit.

Fortunately, it was only one set down, and I've not finished the tinking AND the Do Over. (I don't think they've got a term for that action.)

In the act of finishing the last do over row, I made a mistake in the final five stitches -- just a little reminder from God to let me know that I can still drift off. LOL. I tinked and knit them correctly.

And that reminded me that in knitting we can do over our mistakes, unlike other aspects of our life that we cannot -- or at least we feel that we cannot. Why is that?

After considering it, I believe that it is because as humans we forget that we can forgive mistakes and allow them to be forgotten so do overs are possible. We tend to hold grudges against those "guilty" of making errors. We hold these grudges against ourselves and others.

So, in addition to the lesson in Mindfulness, from this simple mistake I learned that I can always forgive -- forget -- and move on by re-doing what I did incorrectly, learning from the error, and doing it correctly the next time.

Thank you, God, for these two very useful lessons I can apply to my life, as well as to my knitting!