Making mistakes. ..

I'll let you in on a secret, we all make mistakes.  Alright it isn't that big of a secret but it is a true one. Yet we as a society demand and expect perfection.  There is something that I was told though when it comes to making anything. It is never a mistake but rather a personalization.

This skirt was supposed to be white linen until I put it on and found it see-threw. So I fond this mesh fabric and put it on top. Not what I had planed but it worked our better.

You may think I am pulling your leg but I am not. Here's the thing I have cabled front when it should have been to the back. I have sewn sleeves on backwards, put buttons in the wrong spot and purled when I should have knit. I have even run out of fabric and yarn. Now sometimes I will go back and correct them, sometimes I am lazy and don't, sometimes I repeat the mistake creating it's own design and sometimes I just make it work. Sometimes I don't realize what I did until I am wearing the garment. This is usually when I realize I swapped the sleeves, made the collar too big,  or I forgot that the yarn I used stretched worse than a Stretch Armstrong with no chance of it returning to normal.

The sweater that stretched like stretch arm strong. I have to modify it once a year as it out grows me.

It is these garments however that I get the best complements for. I have a skirt that has a pieced together waist band because I ran out of cloth. I have one sweater that is a tad too tight on my upper arms yet I always get asked where I got it. Another one is way too big, I have been asked by several different people if I can make them one like it. (The answer is no,  I knit about 1 sweater a year, each taking me about 2 to 4 months.)

So this was a Christmas gift for my aunt. I finished the Celtic knot only to run out of yarn.  So using some left over black yarn from my brother's hat I made the top intermingling what little of the original yarn I had left.

The thing is other people don't notice that you made a mistake. They think it is done on purpose if they even notice something off. I have sold and know people who have sold items with these personal touches. So the next time you mistakenly run out of cloth or yarn don't go straight to the store and but more. Start by saving your scraps and then using them when you find yourself in these sort of situations. In the bigger picture you've made it yours and no one will know the difference in the end or you won't even notice where it happened.  Not all mistakes need fixing.

So this is a wedding veil I have been working on.  One of the loops has five picots instead of four. In the end no one will notice which one.