I said yesterday that I would be back at the Show next year, entering my knitting. Today I am wondering if I have not finally put to rest my demons. With taking First in every class that I entered, have I not finally proved to myself that Mother Was Wrong. You see, a part of me thinks that is possibly a large factor in the reasons that I enter, for affirmation. Positive Strokes. I’ll never have my mother’s approval in anything but I can look for others to contradict her.
Mr L was so sweet last night when he told me that as he moved around the benches and saw each red card with my name on it, he was becoming very emotional. He says that he is very proud of me. Even I am beginning to believe that I can actually handle a pair of needles and a skein of yarn quite well… but I still see my mother’s scowling face and hear her sharp tongue, feel the slap of her hand every time I did things “wrong”. She was firm in her belief that I was useless with my knitting and would never equal her skill and she entrenched it in my thinking too. Often-times I see nothing but the faults in my work and it dims the attraction of a piece when I know that errors exist.
Maybe now is my time to accept that I do have the hang of it and to retire gracefully (and gratefully!) and allow others to shine.
I feel similarly about the spinning – it’s somebody else’s turn to win. Happily, it’s something that Mother never tried so I don’t have to live up to any expectations there. But isn’t it arrogant to say “I won’t enter, to give somebody else a chance at the prize.” Is that not making a wholly unwarranted assumption? It’s big-headed! Then there is the issue of keeping the class alive by ensuring sufficient entries. If I don’t put mine in, will the count be high enough – we don’t want to lose the Class.
I actually don’t enter my skeins in any expectation of winning, it has just turned out that way every year but one. I feel as though I should restrict the chances of it happening again… and I have said this in previous years. It is actually a very difficult decision to make. I know there are better spinners than me on this island and I have seen better skeins than mine on the bench… I just seem to have the luck of the Devil in that class!
When the call for suggestions for the Schedule goes out we (spinning group) plan to ask for a widening of the criteria and hope to see more entries next year. That should help to reduce my chances but perhaps I’ll only enter a single pair next time… just in case the Devil is with me again.
I think we should try to have the class moved from the Handicrafts section too and into the Knitting & Crochet section. I know it is clearly neither knitting nor crochet but the chances of being judged by somebody who understands yarn is, well, high! A yardstick could then be applied: how well does this yarn meet the criteria of a knitter/crocheter. We could call it Best Handspun Knitting Yarn, perhaps.
You know, I think that’s a good idea. I may have finally cracked the conundrum.
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