Peace of Mind Organizing

All set for a weekend of Olympic knitting

15 August 2008

I have to update you on my progress with the Knitting Olympics over at Ravelry which is officially known as the Ravelympics. The idea is that you commit to knitting something you consider a challenge during the time of the Summer Olympics. I’m very proud of what I’ve been able to achieve with some focused effort.

Yesterday, seven days into the Olympics, I crossed the (initial) finish line. My goal had been to knit all six of the lace squares of the Learn-to-Knit Afghan that I’d been working on for over two years. (The afghan is comprised of 63 8-inch by 8-inch squares, each a different stitch pattern.) With the Ravelympics, you’re supposed to knit something that’s challenging to knit in 17 days. It’s not fair for an experienced knitter to say she’ll knit a baby hat, for instance.

When I set my goal of six lace squares, I really thought it would be a challenge. I’d tried and failed to knit Square 51 over and over, to the point where I’d given up. So I thought that lace was really difficult. Turns out that it was Square 51 that was really difficult. Once I got over that (it took me some 8 hours of knitting to accomplish), things got a lot easier. Square 55 was a bit of a bear as well.

In any case, once I realized that I hadn’t set a truly challenging goal, I changed it. I’m now striving to complete all 13 squares that were remaining in my afghan. That’ll be huge. I’m on Square 57 now and I’m not enjoying it much, so I’m doing a little at a time. I’m looking forward to plowing through a few squares this weekend, specially since I’m going to be out of town at the beginning of a week, working with a client (so not much time for knitting).

It occurs to me that this little exercise really symbolizes a lot of tasks (organizing and otherwise) that we build up in our minds as huge and then hesitate to start on. I thought these lace squares would take me 17 days and I did them in 7. I need to clean out my basement, which feels like a Herculean task. Probably it’s like the lace squares (though less enjoyable). Once I get started and focus on it, it’ll be done in much less time than I anticipate.

I think the lesson of the lace squares will stick with me for some time. And the added bonus is that I’m no longer intimidated by lace! In fact, I do believe I enjoy lace knitting.

Here are the last three lace squares. I posted pictures of the first three on Monday.

Square 54: Seafoam Pattern

Square 55: Single-Strand Lace

Square 56: Elkhorn and Fleurette Panels

Tagged with: goals, knitting olympics, lace, learn to knit afghan, procrastination

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