Ugly scarf still keeping me warm....

My first attempt at knitting a few years ago was a purple scarf knit on my friends bamboo needles. The needles were pretty, the yarn was quality and a beautiful shade of purple, my favorite color. Yet, even with my friends guidance at nearly every stitch the scarf turned out a little, uh... how shall I say it? Only one word will do... wonky. This is a word I often use to talk about things that are uneven and awkward. Just slightly off balanced and a bit out of sorts, that is "wonky" and that is what this scarf is, quite wonky. 

For a while I thought to myself, "Yikes, I can't wear that thing!" No matter how proud I was of the first attempt internally, my fear kept me from showing up with the purple, wonky, fabulous first piece around my neck. I actually hid it at the bottom of a drawer for while and then, when I moved, I put it in a plastic rubbermaid storage container and completely forgot about it until I was recently on a purge-fest last week, cleaning out my closet and making piles of things to give away. I got to the bottom of that storage container for the first time in an embarrassingly long time and saw the scarf in a new way. You see, it had been out of sight out of mind for a long enough time I had thought it had been thrown out!

After a few years of practicing my creativity and becoming more accepting of the process, trusting that failures are a part of being in the game at all, I looked at the ugly purple scarf with love in my eyes; the way, as we often joke, only a mother could. So, I picked it up, shook it out and have been wearing it in the cooler evenings and days of the last week. 

Yes, there are strings hanging off in random places. 

Yes, there are some holes where I skipped some stitches.

Yes, the sides and edges are not what you would call parallel or even. 


No, it is not going to be on the cover of Knitting Monthly, unless it is mistakenly selected for the issue featuring knitting by 3 year-olds. But it is mine. It is vulnerable because it is not good. It is vulnerable because it was my first attempt. Practice and time and trusting the process are the only things that refine and make anything "good" or worth showing. But I sat down and I gave it a try, I got in the game.

I'm still not a great knitter and that is also just as OK because, even after years of my rejection and shame, this ugly scarf is still keeping me warm. 


p.s. I have also learned in more recent years that I am a little bit better at crochet. I guess I am just more loopy (excuse the yarn humor)!