You can't always win.

You can't  always win.  I accept this and it does allow me to appreciate the times when it does go right.

I ended up working on things that needed repair.  There was a neckline on one of my summer tops with a tear in the last round.  I had the yarn handy but the repair had been sitting for two weeks.  I did that and felt pretty good.

Then I had the courage to face a project that was in a corner thinking about its flaws.  It was my sweater in the London Fog yarn from Midknit Cravings.  

I had knit the little shoulder detail down the sleeves but though I love it on the shoulders, I hate knitting it down the sleeves.  When I am not enjoying a thing, I make mistakes so I hate it even more.  

I unraveled the detail and attempted to reknit it in plain stockinette.   It was really tight and I was struggling.  

See on the inside how there is a column of stockinette stitches on each side?  They are not supposed to be there. They were supposed to be unraveled.  So back to the start of the repair again.  

At that point I decided I loved doing chores and went to do dishes.  

I will work on it again today.  I thought it all through.  If I struggle as much as yesterday, I can simply frog the whole darn thing.  This is the part I love about knitting.  The forever mulligan, the capacity of yarn to be ripped back and something new started.  

I am going to think about that today.  How joys and sorrows and failures and successes build upon each other, and at the end of it, the work will give you a something.  Sometimes, that something is not what you wanted or intended.  Sometimes all you have left is deep fierce sorrow.  And sometimes, oh those special sometimes, you have a fountain of joy that suffuses and colours your world.  Whichever you get, there it is.  You have to work with it and live with it.  

I am going to hope for one of those happy outcomes.