No matter how good you are, no matter how long you’ve been working on making your fiber art of choice the best it can be, no matter how much time you can spend or classes you take or knack you may have…for many of us there’s always That Whisper…You know the one. “You suck. That pattern is lame. Other people are so much better at this than you. Why can’t you pick something more challenging, or get a better yarn? Is that approach really the right choice, or are you just being lazy? Gawd, why THAT color? What’s wrong with you, really?”
Even with the insulation of the Pandemic as the perfect excuse to play Keep Away with the rest of society, there are times that criticisms can sink their sharp teeth into your brain and stay there for a while. They can make you put a project down for a while. sometimes for a really long while. Sometimes it’s just your own inner voice bringing the doubt. Sometimes its other knitters. I’ll say it: Most knitters are the warmest, kindest, most generous of people, gleefully offering help and supplies and books and advice, and revelling in other people who Understand. Then there are knitters that are spiteful, horrible gatekeepers that let you know it if you can’t afford the right yarn or have a pattern they think is too simple or gaudy. The fights can be epic, especially for people who never see that side of the fiber community. But knitters are people, and people are terribly imperfect, and they can hurt. Especially if you’re new or have had bad experiences down your particular lonely road. Sometimes That Whisper comes from those people. “Wait, you do cables like THAT? and what’s up with those yarn overs? Humph. Clearly your way is not my way. ”
Even though I’ve been doing fiber arts for a while, I’m not immune to the sting of That Whisper. Not least since I really like handspun yarn, and use it all the time. Handspun yarn, especially the art yarns, tend to shine best when the stitching is fairly simple, as you can lose a lot of the more complex stitches in all those colors and textures. It also makes for gratifyingly fast projects that are fun and easy, so I tend to gravitate to them. Especially these days when there’s just so much to worry about…
I had been hearing That Whisper while knitting up a red hood. It was supposed to be a Red Riding Hood sort of thing, with a little capelet, but I really wanted a scarf/hood combination instead. But the scarf would be warmer, and an easier fit for more people! And I didn’t have enough to make a capelet, not really. But doing a scarf instead? Cop out much? I can’t do better than that, huh? *siiiiiiiigh*
It wasn’t until I talked to another knitterly friend of mine that I realized that the second guessing and running myself down wasn’t helping me or my project. I hadn’t worked on it for a few weeks since I kept looking at it and muttering to myself, “Capelet. Do a freaking capelet. A scarf is just cheating. You cheating knitter, you.” I realized that it was better to trust my instincts in the first place, and listen to what my hands wanted to knit. They wanted to knit a scarf. They wanted something snuggly that wrapped around a throat and kept a warm hood in place in really cold weather.
When you hear That Whisper, don’t listen to the voice. Listen to your hands. What do they want to do? Sometimes your muscle memory is telling you the right thing to do, and it’s good to listen to it. And those other voices? They don’t have to wear what you make, or make the decisions you do. And often That Whisper is hiding their own whisper, the one saying, “You’d better BE better than everybody! Every day! All the time! No matter how weird or inappropriate it is!” And that’s it’s own unhappy hell, no matter how good you are.
So while I do try more complicated knits here and there, it’s the simple ones that give me the most joy. I ignore That Whisper, because it doesn’t know happiness the way I do when I knit that way. Also, sometimes it makes other people warmer than they were before they met me…
Keep making fun things, my fellow knitterly friends. Whatever your project is, I’m proud of it, and of you…