Mistakes

Adam (00:11): Welcome to the Yarn Library Podcast with me, Adam Cleevely.

Georgia (00:14): And me Georgia Denham at Tulipurl on Instagram. It's never gonna get old...

Adam (00:18): Just like me. We are going to talk about mistakes... just like me.

Georgia (00:23): Like your Botox. He doesn't have any Botox, that's why it's funny.

Adam (00:27): Yeah. I think it's probably obvious I don't have Botox from the number of wrinkles I have.

Georgia (00:30): No, it's 'cause you said that you'd never get old, so if–

Adam (00:33): Oh, I see.

Georgia (00:33): Yeah. Obviously 'cause of the cosmetic interventions. I'm saying this and I actually, I've, I've considered Botox. I'm very into my dermatology. You know, early preventative Botox, I–

Adam (00:42): You've considered Botox?

Georgia (00:44): Right, hold on. Early preventative measure, because I have a very expressive face. I'm sure that I'm gonna get loads of people saying, "don't Botox in your face, Georgia", when I say considered as in "I thought about it as an option" and I looked into it because I did a Georgia on Botox and was like, "Hmm, I wonder. Because if you start young and just do a light amount with an experienced..." Why are we talking about dermatology?

Adam (01:11): Yarn Library Podcast.

Georgia (01:12): I just want to make sure I'm not shaming anyone for their, if they do Botox, it's more common people than people think. Anyway.

Adam (01:17): Well, thanks for that [baa].

Georgia (01:19): Well, that was a mistake.

Adam (01:23): And the question is, are we gonna leave it in or take it out Georgia?

Georgia (01:26): Let's find out if it was a mistake by leaving it in.

Georgia (01:29): Oh, Adam, what is the subject of our podcast today?

Adam (01:32): Well, today, Georgia, we are going to talk about mistakes, which...

Georgia (01:35): No way! Yeah.

Adam (01:37): But Botox may or may not be a mistake. I'm just, I'm just gonna connect that into this chat discussion now at every possible opportunity.

Georgia (01:45): How did we get here? I didn't plan this.

Adam (01:47): You are not gonna be able to edit it out. I'm gonna make so many references to it. It's gotta be in there. You are not a big fan of mistakes, Georgia, are you in your knitting?

Georgia (01:55): I dunno.

Adam (01:57): I think in the last episode you were saying how you were... well it's interesting 'cause you said you were gonna re-knit that scarf because it's got mistakes in it and you wanted to, as well as a gift for friends and so on. But...

Georgia (02:08): So I can explain why I want to knit it again... I love the pattern. I really enjoyed it. But the first half that I did, because I was using lots of scrap yarns, that weren't the same. One half is like larger than the other half.

Adam (02:18): Oh, okay.

Georgia (02:19): And so I just want to do it again where it's actually, I use the same yarn type all the way through and it doesn't just...

Adam (02:27): Do what it's doing. Yeah. Which is not quite be the same size.

Georgia (02:29): Yeah, exactly. And the, I just, I've, I'm dealing with it by just leading the, when I tie it very nicely around my neck. I'm just using the bigger side to lead that tie, so it is fine. But, there are a couple of mistakes like when I was early on trying to figure out like, "what is this pattern? And I've got some like extra lines where the pattern's disrupted and stuff. It was funny, I was showing my Grandad the pattern over Christmas and showing him how the pattern works. You know, my granddad's, he's a lorry driver now in the seventies. But he was a painter and decorator years ago, He's like, he's so northern. He saw the little mistake that I'd made at some point where I'd like missed a pattern... I'd pulled the stitch forward instead of back, and he pointed right to it straight away and went, "what happened there?"

Adam (03:21): I mean, I do think mistakes show up in different patterns differently. I like to show my mistakes and I talk about mistakes 'cause I think they're really important. And I also feel like, leaving mistakes in is fine and I'm very accepting of that. And I once went to the charity where I teach and I wanted to show this group of, earlier stage knitters that it's absolutely fine to... To knit and make mistakes and that, and I know where those mistakes are, but no one else will ever, ever spot them or the rest of it. I threw out these, I showed these couple of large items of knitting exactly the same happened. Like it takes me ages to find these mistakes and I know where they are because I can reference them from like, "oh, it's a bit up from that bit and across from there", and then I can study it. And literally, so one of the group just went... What? Like that one.

Georgia (04:15): Should we do like a put on Instagram where we release this episode? Like make a little reel, not a reel, but like a ca... Would you call it Carousel? I'm so not an Instagram person. This is crazy. A, a carousel of our like favourite.

Adam (04:29): Favourite mistakes? Yeah,

Georgia (04:31): Like our knitting duds.

Adam (04:32): How many mistakes can you spot in this picture?

Georgia (04:34): We'll look out for some mistakes.

Adam (04:36): I'll take some pictures of my, of my mistakes and I'll, I'll...

Georgia (04:38): Yeah... we'll do that.

Adam (04:38): ...Expose them

Adam (04:39): But I thoroughly believe in just leaving the mistakes in and moving on because for me, what's important about knitting is the progress you're making, the time you're spending doing the activity, not the appearance of the finished result.

Georgia (04:53): Mm-hmm.

Adam (04:53): And although the whole thing might be aesthetically pleasing, and I mean, you have to take the scale of mistakes. I mean, if you, if you drop a stitch and you say, actually I'm not gonna bother, then your whole garment unravels as a result.

Georgia (05:06): Mm-hmm.

Adam (05:07): Like, maybe that's not a mistake you can live with, I've got an example. I don't wanna give the game away now 'cause I'm gonna show my mistakes and ask people to spot them. But I've got this, I've got on my cable jumper, I've got one cable that goes the wrong way at one point.

Georgia (05:20): Oh. What a disaster.

Adam (05:22): It's a disaster. But it's, it's very, very hard to spot and there was a way to fix it. I didn't fix it, and I don't think the jumper's any worse for that.

Georgia (05:32): Mm-hmm.

Adam (05:32): Like, I just, it's handmade. It's, it was made for me. I wanted it for what it is, and it delivers for me on...

Georgia (05:38): Mm-hmm.

Adam (05:39): ...On what it's supposed to be.

Georgia (05:40): I suppose. It's like how. How impactful is that mistake on the function of it and what's your goal? But I think when you said like, for you, knitting is about the process, the time spent knitting and the learning and the growth. This kind of reminds me of like the concept that knocks around here and there, And I'd love to find out if there's like a definitive origin to it, or if it's related to any other kind of theoretical concepts on making or anything like that.

Georgia (06:04): But that idea of being like a process knitter versus a product knitter, have you heard about that before?

Adam (06:07): Mm, absolutely.

Georgia (06:08): Yeah. Yeah. So like if someone's motivated towards where they're just, they enjoy doing the process or if they want the product. And it's weird actually, because I think generally heard people say that process knitters who are interested in the actual act of knitting, i.e. you, are actually more okay with undoing things or frogging things, tinking things back to then, continue.

Adam (06:30): Exactly, exactly that. And I remember a conversation I had with a, psychologist called Mia, she runs a podcast, called Why Do You Knit?

Georgia (06:39): Yeah.

Adam (06:39): Why I Knit podcast. It's a fantastic podcast. But she immediately latched onto, when I did an interview with her, she said, why, why did you, when did you start knitting? And I told her that story about me finger knitting with this ball of yarn that I unravelled and redid lots of time. She said, "oh, right. Oh, so you're a process knitter and therefore had this series of assumptions about the way I knitted, which included, yeah, well, if it's about the process, then you don't, then you don't worry. But for me, also, progress is too important. And I get impatient. At the moment, I'm really struggling to engage with projects on three millimetre needles and so on. I need to see faster progress than that. And I, I think these things go in phases, but...

Georgia (07:17): Do you need to see the progress and the process moving forward because you're actually a product knitter?

Adam (07:24): I mean, oh,

Georgia (07:24): Maybe that's why you're leaving mistakes?

Adam (07:25): Maybe, maybe everyone's a little bit of both. I know and maybe, maybe it's a spectrum, Georgia?

Georgia (07:29): This is it. I think it's a spectrum because I struggle to define myself in either camp and I also, it's weird when you are thinking about it, 'cause I'm like, I feel like I get this sort of weird internalised judgement as well about like, how I should be less material and be more, present and enjoy the process and be mindful of it rather than being motivated by a product. I don't actually think that anyone's casting this kind of shame, but I wonder, when I meet this concept in the wild when people say, "I'm a process knitter", and I'm like, well, I'm sorry I'm so materialistic,

Adam (08:02): Yeah.

Georgia (08:02): And going back to goals, right? So, why do you knit?

Adam (08:05): So I, in terms of, In terms of why I knit, I think I knit for lots of different reasons, at lots of different times and understanding why I'm knitting the thing that I'm knitting at that time is really important. I had an incident of the weekend where I had a project, which I had really wanted to work on for a long time, I had almost an hour luxury, absolute luxury, sitting in a car by myself to be able to knit, waiting for a child in their class and as I was knitting, after about 45 minutes, I realised I was just getting really, really cross and stressed with this thing because it wasn't, it actually wasn't delivering what I needed out of knitting...

Georgia (08:44): Mm-hmm.

Adam (08:44): ...Which was more progress than, than I was able to get out of it. And it wasn't like, it wasn't that it was full of mistakes or anything but that's a whole different area of like, " why are you knitting at any one moment?" And is this a time when you need to be learning something new? Is it a time when you need to be in the act of process? Do you need to be engaged in a pattern or not engaged in a pattern? And what I really needed was something just a bit more mindless because I dunno, we've talked about... the last couple of weeks, I've been working like 12 hours a day, seven days a week. It's a lot. So when I had an hour's break, like I really needed to be able to zone out, not intensely focus on a really hard pattern, which is what that was.

Georgia (09:22): I feel like it's going back to the purpose of something. For me, mistakes are... how significant a mistake is and whether or not I'll go back and take it out is dependent on the goal of the thing, the goal of making the thing. Like you say, if this is because I need to do something with my hands whilst I'm in a lecture, like this morning I was knitting something. It's just stockinette anyway, so if there's a drop stitch or something, it's very easy to fix that for me.

Adam (09:48): Yeah.

Georgia (09:49): So maybe I'm not so worried about tension or whatever else, but like, I'm worried about functional mistakes. In the past I feel like you sort of cast me as like, oh, Georgia really doesn't like mistakes, and she always goes back and fixes them. If something is driven by a visual aesthetic or there's like a certain pattern and I suddenly find that visually, like visually very like disruptive to the thing I'm trying to do, then I might go back because it's then gonna bug me.

Adam (10:14): Mm-hmm.

Georgia (10:14): Or if it's a functional mistake, so I'm thinking about when I've gone back... do you remember that orange jumper where the pattern told me to use a smaller needle size for the sleeves?

Adam (10:24): Yeah.

Georgia (10:24): And then it totally changed the density of, well, as it would, the fabric and the sleeves. Yeah. And then they were really tight and I was working the decreases per the pattern. But then, chonky rower arms, it wasn't comfy.

Adam (10:36): Mm-hmm.

Georgia (10:37): And you were like, "oh no, I just knit forward, like, keep going".

Adam (10:41): Yeah.

Georgia (10:41): But then when I discussed it with the people in the Rogue Yarn Club that you're very much a part of, in that community, for anyone who's listening last week.

Adam (10:49): Keep telling yourself that, yep.

Georgia (10:49): They kind of got my sensory needs on that, and they said, "oh, but this will bug you and you won't wear it"...

Adam (10:58): Yeah.

Georgia (10:58): "Because it will be uncomfortable".

Adam (11:01): Yeah.

Georgia (11:01): And if it was an aesthetic mistake that was bothering me, I feel like I'd be more inclined to be like, "ah, it is not really visible and it's a quirk of it, but when it's a functional mistake, that means that I will not reach for that jumper and I won't really wear it. And then it's kind of wasted yarn, wasted time, and I really wanted to wear that jumper.

Adam (11:20): So there's, there's another example for me. I suppose my understanding of mistakes and other people's mistakes, has also moved forwards quite a bit when I, again, my cable jumper, it is a self drafted pattern. Fundamentally it was wrong and it had too big a neck when I started and it took a lot of work then to patch that up afterwards and make a piece that fitted back into it. It's not necessarily a mistake, but it's not perfect and I fancy knitting another cable jumper at some point and I feel like, well maybe I'll go back to that one and I'll reknit that one 'cause it'd be nice to have the perfect version of that, of what I originally envisaged. And that's interesting because I'm not unravelling that jumper. I'm going, I'm going back with a, with a sort of different view on like, "I think I can do this better now, and I want to see the difference in my, in my knitting". But the other thing when I, when I talk to other people about mistakes is I've started to realise, as you say, all of the different kinds of mistakes that people make and then also all of the reasons. That people are going back to their mistakes.

Georgia (12:25): Mm-hmm.

Adam (12:26): And I think my passion for saying to people, you shouldn't fix your mistakes and you should move forwards, I think is because the biggest reason that I see that people talk about mistakes actually comes from some sort of fear of failure, or fear of criticism and like, that's basically the only reason that I care about. Anyone having this immunity to mistakes because I think that's a really important thing to get over, and that knitting gives you an opportunity to reject that thought and to learn that you don't need to deal with that as a, as a...

Georgia (13:05): Mm-hmm.

Adam (13:05): ...As a negative voice in your head. And I think that's where I want to, that's where I care about giving people the confidence to move forwards past the mistake...

Georgia (13:14): Mm-hmm.

Adam (13:14): Is to give themselves the proof that it doesn't matter. And you know, the world won't end. You're not gonna get criticised. You know, it's, it's often a traumatic event as a child or something, you've got criticised for a mistake and you bear that. And I think that's really challenging to live with and I think knitting gives you a wonderful opportunity to move past that because you can have this very tangible proof that I've created something I care about, even if it's got mistakes in it, I can still love it.

Georgia (13:44): Mm-hmm.

Adam (13:44): I think there's so many positive messages in there from a, from a psychological health point of view.

Georgia (13:49): Mm-hmm.

Adam (13:50): If you are fixing a mistake because you had a vision, you wanted this perfect piece of lace, you wanted this perfect looking...

Georgia (13:57): Mm-hmm

Adam (13:58): ...Piece of colour work or whatever that is, it wasn't perfect, and so your choices to perfect that, because aesthetically you care about that perfection, I think I understand that now better as a sort of lived choice that you want to make.

Georgia (14:10): Mm-hmm.

Adam (14:11): And like you're saying about the sleeves, I totally get that.

Georgia (14:13): Mm-hmm.

Adam (14:13): I do understand like ripping those sleeves off and doing them again. Because I know where that comes from now.

Georgia (14:21): When you said, being able to love it despite the mistakes, I think it's also, it's about being able to love yourself, you know?

Adam (14:29): Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Georgia (14:30): Being able to love yourself as a person who made and makes mistakes as well. There was kind of a scenario that happened on my group yarn... um, sorry, our group that you just weren't available this weekend, Adam, where we went, went away and had had hired an Airbnb and shared cooking and try to knit together. And some people using that as like dedicated knitting time to start new projects. And one of our mutual friends, was casting something on that they were really struggling with. I think they're mostly used to do crochet, so knitting for them is like, you'll figure out who this is, knit. I was gonna say, just tell me who they are and then just bleep them out. Oh, yeah. That's, it's baah

Adam (15:13): Right.

Georgia (15:13): So one of our friends was, casting on a new project. Mm-hmm. And relatively recently, late in the last year or so, they'd moved over from like crochet to try some knitting and, they were casting on this new top that, was, they had like a. Really, I almost wanna say it was like lace weight. It was really thin bouclay yarn.

Adam (15:39): Ooh!

Georgia (15:40): Yeah. You know where this story's going.

Adam (15:42): Can I just jump to the punchline?

Georgia (15:44): So then it was, the pattern was also a little bit. Questionably written, not super clear, a bit confusing.

Adam (15:56): And for those of you can't see Georgia's face, she's pulled a, she's pulled a big face that described that the pattern was absolute rubbish.

Georgia (16:01): Well, I, it was, the thing is, if you've already done like raglan stuff, you could look at the pattern and you go like, okay, yeah, it's, that number of stitches you divide by that... but if that's the first time you are doing that kind of thing.

Adam (16:15): Mm-hmm.

Georgia (16:16): It was set up in such a way that it was really confusing.

Adam (16:20): Yeah.

Georgia (16:20): And so it wasn't very clear to said person and. That from like the design perspective. This morning I was at a lecture, like auditing and sitting in a lecture for, human computer interaction and design principles. And one of the biggest things they were talking about was how you could line up graphics on a webpage or a text or a piece of software for it to communicate meaning, right? And I feel like, knitting patterns sometimes are lacking in that kind of structuring and presenting of information and consistency. Just making sure that stuff is readable and makes sense and intuitive for the end user.

Adam (16:59): Mm-hmm.

Georgia (16:59): As we would say in computer science. So, the pattern was against her, the yarn was against her, and then needles wise also kind of against her because she had metal needles, super slippy.

Adam (17:12): So I'm just gonna do a little bit of explaining here, 'cause not everyone will have necessarily had the experience.

Georgia (17:19): Can I, before you do, can I give you the more, the way that it got worse, you can load it on. Load it on. Okay. So, trying to even like, cast on the number of stitches when you were stabbing into the boule yarn, it was splitting so you weren't ever actually really sure if like that was an actual stitch or not the right stitch. So that was bad. So needles were too long to be the right circumference to be able to knit in the round and she didn't really wanna do like magic loop, so she was kind of knitting like at a weird angle, I think, because basically it went wrong for her so many times that eventually me and one of the other people on the retreat were like, why don't we, oh, this is what happened. She, the pattern was written really weirdly, and so it wasn't super clear between US 8s and 6 millimetre needles. So when she had finally actually got it right, because one of us sat down and went through the pattern to like figure it out, she'd actually cast on the whole thing in the wrong needle size, which is why it was getting really difficult and challenging as well and wasn't working. So it was just like a whole list of things, which obviously is really ramping up against her, like self-efficacy score in going through this process...

Adam (18:30): Yeah,

Georgia (18:30): And we were all trying to reassure her that like " no, this is not on you. This is a culmination of different events that are coming together and conspiring together to not provide you a happy knitting experience". So yeah, she cast on again, again, again. And eventually someone suggested, "why doesn't one of us cast it on for you? So that you can just get to the same place" because she was so done with it.

Adam (18:55): Mm-hmm.

Georgia (18:56): So I volunteered a tribute, and then it was such, it was horrible, like really horrible. And then I got round, like the first... you know, I've, I've done this, but not with that yarn, not with those needles. Somewhere in the first two, three rows. 15 stitches disappeared.

Adam (19:14): Wow.

Georgia (19:17): Between having totally the wrong size needles and having to knit like that, the yarn splitting like nobody's business: 15 stitches.

Adam (19:25): That's amazing.

Georgia (19:26): It was bad.

Adam (19:27): That's brutal.

Georgia (19:28): It was. It was bad. But she was, she said to me, "if you are making those mistakes, I feel better".

Adam (19:34): Yeah, I'm, I'm absolutely certain like how validating

Georgia (19:37): Yeah.

Adam (19:37): That you are doing it as well...

Georgia (19:39): Yeah,

Adam (19:39): ...You are. You know,

Georgia (19:39): And so whilst it took a bit of time out of the knitting and then we also had to scrap that one as well. Actually, I'm kind of glad retrospectively that I did that. Because for her, I think that was helpful. I'm not saying I'm perfect. I'm not saying that I wouldn't have definitely not made mistakes unless it was on these tools. It was just, it was a difficult culmination of things that we could kind of go, okay, both of us have tried this and it's been rubbish for both of us.

Adam (20:06): So now I want to explain for people because, so bouclé yarn, if you've not knitted with it or you're not familiar with bouclé yarn, it is a kind of yarn. It means, like buckled or curled in French.

Georgia (20:18): Mm.

Adam (20:18): It's kind of, if you imagine a sheep with really curly hair and then turned that into like micros size yarn, then that's, that's what you're left with so it's yarn with all of these little free curls that come out of it and, it looks absolutely beautiful. It's stunning. It's, it's, it gives you a kind of beautiful fuzziness to the yarn and so on that you might otherwise get by adding mohair or some other interesting texture. When it comes to knit, it is an absolute f%!$*ing nightmare. Sorry about that. Hello, sheep. Because the difficulty with it is that. You never have the certainty as to which part of the yarn you're knitting into, whether you're knitting into the core or whether you've accidentally just skewered a loop. And so when Georgia's saying you lose 15 stitches, it's your eye twitching, then you literally, the needle is going, is very possible that you knit actually into one of these little extra loops that comes off the side. You don't realise that. You and you keep thinking you're moving forward, but actually when you're knitting, the stitches just come undone. Yeah. Because it hasn't gone into a loop. It's gone into a fake loop. So it's a, it's, it's, it can be very tricky to knit with, particularly as you get very small with it, because you need to be more precise. You need to see what you're doing rather than feel what you're doing.

Georgia (21:32): And if you're using big needles as well, bigger than I'm used to 'cause I normally, my, most of my projects are usually on like four and a half. If it's bigger than four and a half, I start to feel it weirdly in my hands, to be honest. And um, when I was on these really big needles, just like. There was just, it was just building up so much tension having on these, on these great big needles, there's just like not much given, there's not flexibility in the yarn, so it's like you're, you're knitting with something that you're trying not to break.

Adam (22:01): Yeah.

Georgia (22:01): But you also need to be forceful enough to like get it around these big needles and then it's catching, it was just. Yeah...

Adam (22:07): It's, it's kinda sticks to itself...

Georgia (22:09): Mm-hmm.

Adam (22:09): Bouclé as well. It's very, it's very challenging to work with.

Adam (22:12): That's interesting. So it's interesting you are bringing that up as a mistake or, we're talking about mistakes more generally. Why do you, where do you think the mistake is in that?

Georgia (22:22): You know, objectively, and I'm not saying this is any kind of judgmental thing. Objectively, because we didn't get to the end result. There were mistakes were made, right?

Adam (22:32): Mm-hmm.

Georgia (22:32): Because, I, didn't see where I'd caught the, caught a loop instead of a stitch, and then dropped into the stitch where it expanded. I didn't notice in the knitty needle folder that there were actually some shorty needles that I could have been using the whole time, so like tool mistakes maybe.

Adam (22:51): Mm-hmm.

Georgia (22:51): I think people are really trying to move towards like compassion and self acceptance, when we're making mistakes that sometimes maybe people are trying to say like, "oh, no, no, it's not a mistake". It's like they're distancing themselves from the concept of making a mistake, almost reframing it, rebranding it, rather than learning to accept mistakes almost objectively.

Adam (23:14): Yeah, I mean it's, what's interesting for me there is that what you're describing as well is actually a, a mistake. So the mistake that happened if there was a mistake that happened was, as you say, in tool selection, pattern selection, yarn selection, and then those mistakes once they've happened, actually what needed to happen was a reassessment of the initial situation, which is different from the kind of mistakes that you are, you're making a mistake when you are knitting.

Georgia (23:44): Yeah.

Adam (23:44): So mistakes were happening when you're knitting, but nothing to do with the practise of knitting. It was all to do with the initial conditions which were set up.

Georgia (23:52): But I suppose if I had had more awareness or experience, positive experience, forward progress, experience of working with those materials and tools, even though they weren't optimum or good. Like if someone had had more experience of that and knew how to work around or what to look out for when that was happening, then you could say that they, we might not have made the same mistakes. Because I don't wanna completely blame the tools because if I was more experienced with that kind of yarn and those kind of tools, I'd be knowing what to look out for.

Adam (24:22): I mean, this is where, this is where. Groups and pairing up often makes so much difference and it's just not unique to knitting at all. You find that in workplaces that you find someone gets very stuck with a process and they get frustrated with it, and it takes them a long time, but they will continue to do it because they're not given opportunities to question it or talk about it with someone else. And when someone else does say, why do you do it like that looks really frustrating and difficult for you. Then when you have to explain it, you can go back to, oh, okay. We can recheck the initial conditions and find out, actually there's a fundamental problem, the structural problem with how this is set up rather than, the problem through execution that you're going through.

Georgia (25:04): Mm-hmm.

Adam (25:04): But that takes, that takes. Huge presence of mind to do if you are going to do it by yourself, because you've gotta, you've gotta lift yourself out of it and say, you've gotta question, hold on a second. What's the right thing to do?

Georgia (25:15): Being in a community or a group of people, like it was beneficial in a way that we could kind of pull knowledge and figure out what was going wrong. But um, on the other hand, it actually became quite difficult because we are such a, like a supportive, lovely group of friends and we wouldn't want to criticise someone Right. In a cruel mean way. It became quite. I don't wanna say difficult, it was just, I wasn't sure how. While the person was feeling reassured of, like when we're saying, no, no, it's not you. It's like, it's these cumulative things. Any of us would find it difficult. This pattern's really not very clear, or this, this yarn is really challenging to use and it's, you can hear those things, especially if you're a beginner or started knitting relatively recently or new to those materials or tools you could hear those things and think that it's like a nice way of telling you that you are not ready for this.

Adam (26:17): Yeah.

Georgia (26:18): Or it's a nice way of telling you that actually it's too complex or that you've run ahead.

Adam (26:23): I'm reminded of a, another area that I feel really passionate about. Another craft, I suppose, that I really enjoy is cooking. And that's something where you, again, acceptance of mistakes. It depends on what you're cooking as to how tolerant you can be of mistakes and how tolerant the food is gonna be of mistakes. But I was reminded, my eldest, was cooking something he loves. Researching and finding new recipes. And he found a recipe for, Italian pasta, cacio e pepe, which is a terribly simple recipe. It's got three ingredients. Maybe you count it as four ingredients, like it's nothing.. And it's something that you can technically cook in the 10 or 11 minutes it takes to cook the pasta, basically. But it is a recipe, which it is totally false to think that it is simple and easy because the actual temperatures, the texture of the pasta, the water and all the comp, the exact proportions that you mix it in, take a huge amount of practise to get the understanding that 'cause what you need to make is a, is a creamy sauce out of a hard cheese. Mixed with boiling water and that does not work every time for every person. It certainly doesn't work if it's the first time you've ever done it. And I remember when he made it that he was, he was so upset with it because as you would expect or happens a lot, the sauce just splits and you get a hard part and you get a, a liquidy part. And they don't, it doesn't combine to this beautiful creamy sauce that he'd seen that he thought he should get. And it's very difficult to convince someone at that point. It's not you, it's this. It is actually a very hard thing to do because there's some difficult chemistry behind this. Mm. Because he's just going through, he doesn't know how to sort, what's an easy recipe versus a difficult recipe. You look at four ingredients, you think it's a piece of cake. Mm. And. And it turns out it's not a robust recipe to tolerance of, error. And I think that's, that's often where it's really difficult. And I guess if you've got support around you, that's one of the ways in which you can punch through that and you know, where you have a potentially a failure.

Georgia (28:36): Yeah.

Adam (28:36): You can, you can deal with it, move past it and try it again and have some coaching

Georgia (28:40): This is reminding me of. Dima's sourdough, actually. He's really big into baking and he's kind of had a bit of a rut recently where his sourdoughs have not been getting the kind of rise that he enjoyed before. It's like the, maybe the last month, two months, he's been changing a few bits and bobs. But it's little things like, we've been very busy, lots going on and he'll like leave it to prove a little bit too long. There's just little things where he's not been able to give it the attention that it needs to be like, wow, this is an incredible loaf. I mean, he makes incredible bread. . One instance I know of that he was like, no, no, it's not even edible, we can't eat it. But every other time, even when he's saying, "oh no, it's not great, it's not great". Like, I'm still thinking this is delicious and compared to like buying something from a supermarket, it's great, right? But I think it's an important like, gentle parenting, acknowledging someone's feelings kind of thing. It's important for me to like meet him where he's at. Understand that it's a, it's a passion, it's something that he's really interested in and he's interested in it on that sort of chemistry level. Mm-hmm. Like you were saying about the recipe with your son. Just regardless of how this person feels, just telling you like, "oh no, no, don't be silly. Don't be such a perfectionist. It's lovely". I wonder if that's sometimes a bit limiting in that, actually what is important for... for my husband, for Dima is he gets so much joy out of all the chemistry that makes it work really well. And it's not that he's carrying it in some kind of burdensome, horrible way when it goes wrong, but actually, I just don't wanna shoot him down and say like, oh, no, no, no. You can accept this level of rise. You know, you can accept this subpar loaf, not this subpar, but he's got different ambitions for his loaves and I support them.

Adam (30:31): So I, there are two really I, the burning question that I have to ask you, Georgia, for the, everyone that has listened to every episode of this is, which came first? Was it the sourdough or the cultured butter?

Georgia (30:42): Sourdough.

Adam (30:43): Okay, fine. I'm glad we got that out the way The, so the other, the other thing that I wanted to know about that is like, well, I suppose it's, it's more a commentary actually, but you are, you are absolutely right that sometimes when you are creating something. The self goal is perfection and you want a perfect sourdough, and you know what a perfect sourdough is, and therefore, anything that isn't, that is objectively not it. And I totally agree with you, but that is the question for Dima in his hobby. At that point, why are you doing it? And if it's to create perfect bread, then, then that is what's important, and that's what the hobby is. And it's the same thing with knitting. If your, if your object is to create something perfect, then that's absolutely fine. That is the reason you're gonna go back and fix a mistake.

Georgia (31:38): Mm-hmm.

Adam (31:39): But if you are, it depends where you are coming from and why you want to, why you want to knit in the first place, or why you want to pursue any, any kind of craft.

Georgia (31:48): Well, maybe that pursuit of perfection, maybe part of it is accepting that as a journey that includes mistakes. I think just expecting to have like a perfect loaf every time and then deeping that on a personal level, like that's not positive, right? Mm-hmm. And that would have negative effects, effects perhaps on your self-esteem, for example. But yeah, maybe there's a way to frame this as " okay, so me knitting this, okay. I'm knitting it. At first I thought, oh no, I want to knit it for myself, or like whatever else. I've got a friend who has a birthday coming up and I realised, oh, actually they'd really love this and I really want to make this again because mm-hmm. They'd love it. And I'm realising that people say about, you can learn so much by knitting a pattern twice. Yeah. And that's kind of how I feel about it. And so you could say "well, yeah. I'm hoping this next one is going to have fewer mistakes in it or is going to be perfect, but I don't necessarily think that's like driven by some kind of like negative perfectionism. I think it's driven by like, okay, well I'm gonna do it again for a friend objectively, like I'm doing it a second time. Mm-hmm. And I know how to recognise those errors that I made the first time. I'm not gonna make those again and hopefully I will come out of it feeling more like solid in those skills.

Adam (33:05): But you see, that's one of the other things that you get from knitting and from craft is. You're just describing practise and improvement.

Georgia (33:13): Yeah.

Adam (33:14): And that's, you're tapping into the thing that you're getting outta knitting at that point is that I can demonstrate to myself that I can improve on something that I'm developing over time. And again, that's, I think it's wonderful awareness to see that in yourself and understand it and say, this is why I'm choosing to knit this thing at this time.

Georgia (33:33): This whole like, perfectionism concept, like people can say that you should accept mistakes, then stop being such a perfectionist. Perfectionist is like one of those words I work on with my therapist because I, in my life, so many people have called me a perfectionist and I don't relate to it, and I find it a really difficult word because I just feel like I'm trying to get something to a point of done. And I've realised in my own like neurodivergent experience that quite often when I am exhibiting what people might consider as perfectionist tendencies is because I actually don't have a clearly defined or understood definition of what is the done thing. Hmm. And so I'm just like working through something until I feel like it's reached the point of done. Yeah. Because I'm not recognising what is the functional doneness like, that's not my default. When people say like, it's motivated by some kind of perfectionism or some kind of procrastination, I found my. My biggest issue in that is like not having clearly defined goal. And I suppose that also comes back to purpose of like, if you've got not a clearly defined purpose for something and you're not able to split off, like what's an aesthetic choice versus what's a functional choice. I remember my therapist, described that actually you could think of perfectionism as a form of procrastination and procrastination as a form of emotional regulation. So if you're being perfectionist about something, it might be that actually you could displace that with emotionally regulating in a different way. Mm-hmm. And then you can like, work through it. so. I don't know. I didn't expect it to go this conversation to go this way, but yeah.

Adam (35:04): But you are also making me think about, the aesthetic that I feel you come across as a knitter when you go online because, we, it was very in vogue to talk about the impossible beauty of people's lifestyles and all the rest of it that exists on Instagram and other places. And just how unhealthy it is for people to look at that 'cause it's difficult to truly tell yourself that's not real, that's just Instagram. It's fake. And it is, it, if you looking at it a lot, it does, it does become real to you and that is your reality and it's very difficult but, but I think also when the, when the space, when that space on Instagram is also taken up in knitting and crafting by people who can produce things that are virtually perfect and highly curated. It also creates an environment in which you feel like that is the, that's the level, that's the standard that you should meet as a knitter.. And I think, I mean, the more I talk about this, the more I want to go and create more reels about my woeful inadequacies in knitting and show the mistakes and all the rest of it because, because I realise how important that is. And I, I've, I've, I've done, I have done that before, but I probably don't do enough of it because it's so important to see as a beginner knitter. That everyone makes huge amounts of mistakes and just slowly those things go over time and it's, it's difficult when, I guess influencers are out there just producing stuff that is perfect, it does look perfect and in order to get the likes and the shares and the follows and all the rest of it. You know, there has to be an element of perfectionism about it. Mm. Which we, it creates in itself a whole difficult culture. If all you were doing was looking at sourdough on, on Instagram, which I remember there was a time when Instagram was surfing me up an awful lot of bread Then like that is a, that is a thing of beauty, how you can decorate sourdough loaves, all the rest of it. I would feel woefully in adequate as a baker if that was my feed. Yeah, it's, it's very challenging.

Georgia (37:11): Like we've had a lot of conversations about social media things over time, over the course of our friendship, but especially since we started doing this podcast and then I was releasing reels, right? And, I think one of the tensions almost in like, videos and editing for me has been like, okay, I want to make sure that if I'm putting a video out that I need to make the time to make sure that my references are correct, that I've read the associated sources, and that I'm providing information. Because functionally, as someone who's doing a PhD and is putting themselves on Instagram effectively as like an academic type person, mm-hmm. That becomes an essential, like kind of editing and research and, sometimes that is very time consuming. Is a very important part of my field. And then to someone else, if they're looking at it purely from releasing regular videos. Like I don't, I'm not in a place now that I'm releasing regular videos because it is just too time consuming. I haven't figured out a way quickly to come up with quick reels. I've got some ideas at the moment, things in the pipeline, but I don't have a clear cut. Line for that.

Adam (38:20): Yeah, and I guess, I mean, I'm, I'm probably very well suited to that environment because I'm quite happy to accept something that isn't quite perfect and put it out,

Georgia (38:32): But also you're able to do that because you're often providing information that isn't like a reference source that you are. That's what I'm getting at.

Adam (38:40): Absolutely. Yeah. I'm not quoting someone and making sure that is it.

Georgia (38:43): Yeah, you, hundred percent you're presenting your own perspective, which. I feel like if, I mean you do it so well. That's the thing is you are happy to put videos out regularly and you can do, and I've tried like little ways of thinking how could I be more Adam in this situation and just like put something out and then I'm like, all the ideas I have are really complex and require like lots of script writing and then checking books and references and stuff. And then I get inevitably lots of comments going, it would be really good if you gave the references for this. And like, I can't find any of the sources. And I'm just like, ah, so that's why you don't get videos from me. Versus if I was able to make something like a fun video with Lisa and, this is not me diminishing your workload because you are working constantly and you take so much pride in your videos, they're amazing. And I aspire to your level of like productivity, Adam. But just by nature of the content,

Adam (39:35): But also they are work in progress. And that's something that I'm able to acknowledge with myself is that I go back and I analyse videos and I look at why they failed and how they failed and where they didn't go wrong. It,. Overall, if you want to say the success of a video is when it reaches most of your followers, which usually means it's been a viral video. I maybe get one in 30 of those, of the content I produce, and that means the 29 of those, I'm looking at what they. What they got wrong. And for the other one, I'm looking at what, what went right for it. Mm. But, but it's also, it is, it is practise. And I look at, I go back and I look at what I did six months ago and I look at how I've changed what I've, what I've done differently. But it is very much in a way like knitting and this, that I. Finish it, get it out there, get it off the blocking mats. Yeah. Publish it. And then, I think it hurts less now, when I produce rubbish or, what, what I think is rubbish because, because you just get more used to the fact that, a bunch of stuff you do isn't, isn't right. And you just have to keep practising at it if it's, if it's something that you enjoy the pursuit of, and I do enjoy the ultimately. The reward of creating feeling in a community where people care about what you've done, either because you made them laugh or because you made them think differently, or because you were able to reengage them with a craft or, whatever it was. I, for me, those moments when they happen, even if it's just once a month, those are, they absolutely outweigh the 29 failures along the way. But yeah, it's an acceptance of, I guess why are you doing it? What's your standard of perfection? What, where does, where does it come from? Mm-hmm. And what's, what's your definition of done, maybe?

Georgia (41:19): Yeah, maybe the overall sentiment of this conversation is to think more functionally about what's your point of done? What's your point of perfectionism? What's your reasons for accepting mistakes or not accepting mistakes? And maybe having those more detailed and nuanced perspectives or looks at things means that we can view that "am I a process knitter?", "am I a product knitter?" In that more spectrum. In a kinda a spectrum way. Mm. Because you could acknowledge that. Well, in this circumstances, if it was a mistake on, the neckline where it was too few stitches or,

Adam (41:55): And it would go your head

Georgia (41:56): Yeah. For example, or it is just like slightly cutting into me here and I could just can't bear to wear it, then that's very different to like. Missing misplacing a bobble or something

Adam (42:09): I suppose the other, the other place that it comes up for me is that I know that there are some people who are, have, have, may have knitted for decades. So I would normally regard those people as highly competent knitters by virtue of their experience. You know, that they can knit with their eyes shut, they don't need to all the rest of it, and yet are hung up on absolutely making sure that at, at the end of every row. They go back and count the number of stitches. And for me, that again speaks to a lack of self-confidence that I don't...

Georgia (42:42): Interesting.

Adam (42:43): That's different from my experience. I, We've talked about before, that I'm overconfident all the rest of it in some areas, but, that's the kind of thing where I want people, I wish more people would check in with themselves about why are you doing that? And if you, if you are gonna go back and correct a mistake, what is the goal of that correction?

Georgia (43:03): But then kind of going back to that, like looking at it from a nuanced perspective. I don't think that necessarily someone going, if they're a very experienced knitter, that they're going back after every row. 'cause they're thinking, oh God, I've probably made a mistake. I mean, maybe the person that you're thinking of, that's the case. From your own experience you are going back and reading that scenario as, oh, it must be an insecurity that they can't trust themselves or trust the experience or be willing to make a mistake. When actually I'm kind of thinking, okay, that would be a bit tedious and I would like not enjoy doing that, but I can understand if someone's really experienced and they go, over the years I've made lots of mistakes and now I just basically go back and I just double check how many stitches I've got, or A marker every 10. And it's fairly easy for me to do because that way I just know that I'm not gonna have to deal with a mistake further down the line. And it could be just more of an more an objective, just like practical thing that they're doing. You know?

Adam (43:58): I love that we're gonna invent the reasons here, and I'm gonna agree with you, but yeah. You know, may 'cause if, if you are a perfectionist knitter, you want everything to be perfect,

Georgia (44:07): But why do you want it to be perfect?

Adam (44:08): Which, which is, which is an acceptable thing. Like if, if, if you want to create something that you know was perfect at every stage. That's a, that's a, I'm not here to judge anyone's goals,

Georgia (44:18): But I don't think it's, it doesn't necessarily mean that the perfectionism is motivated just by the concept of perfection it's motivated by, I want my thing to look like this thing.

Adam (44:29): Well, you just could be the aesthetic that I want to know that when I've created this piece of lace that it is, that it is absolutely.

Georgia (44:38): Well, yeah, if you're doing lace work or something, it probably means that you're not gonna get really confused, like, if you go back and check every row, then you have the assurance of going like, yep, that's all good. And then you give yourself a little filter for weeding out. Like, oh, okay, I've made a mistake there. If you were counting every row because you were terrified that you'd done something wrong every time, then yeah, maybe you need to work on that. But like, if it's because it's a practical adjustment.

Georgia (45:06): The other thing I wanted to talk about just briefly as we, as we wrap up, is actually how. Mistakes in different contexts could also be reframed, as in some situations it's innovation or an opportunity for innovation. And sometimes you make a mistake and then you realise, oh, that's kind of cool. I think I'm more willing to like, make mistakes and things when I'm in like experiment mode and knitting this new shawl I've really enjoyed the shape and the colour and the patterns and stuff, my brain's whizzing around with like different ideas of things to try and I want to almost enter into a making space where I'm like deliberately doing some things that I know are probably gonna bring mistakes up. But it's a space for creativity and innovation.

Adam (45:45): As soon as we finish this recording, Georgia, I'm gonna show you the contents of the two drawers behind you, which are literally, I've got so many swatches of my playful mistakes and innovations.

Georgia (45:55): I've always wondered why you keep these. That's amazing.

Adam (45:58): Okay. There are two drawers behind you and I'll show you.

Georgia (46:00): Interesting.

Adam (46:01): But no one else, but they're my secret. Yeah. Don't, don't tell anyone, please. Well, the thing is that the, because they are my creative process you can't define them as mistakes.

Georgia (46:12): I mean yeah, exactly.

Adam (46:13): You could call 'em what you want, but they're mine. So,

Georgia (46:15): But I don't think mistakes, mistake is just a word. Like it doesn't have to be a, a burden.

Adam (46:20): No

Georgia (46:20): Put that on a t-shirt. Merch? Anyone?

Adam (46:24): Yarn Library podcast. I feel like we've got all sorts of good quotes we could put on there.

Georgia (46:28): Oh yeah, for sure.

Adam (46:29): If we're gonna make merch though, I would want like, some stick of cultured butter walking into the yarn library.

Georgia (46:36): No butter in the library.

Adam (46:38): No uncultured butter in this library.

Georgia (46:40): No uncultured butter in my library.

Adam (46:42): And that's all we've got time for this week. Thank you very much for listening to the Yarn Library podcast with me, Adam Cleevely

Georgia (46:48): And me Georgia Denham at Tulipurl. I should start doing in different accents or something.

Adam (46:51): Oh my God, yes, please. Next week. Next week, Georgia and Dutch, which is one of my favourites.