Harder than it Looks

I have been knitting. Sock #2 of Chili is at the gusset stage; in fact, the gusset is a couple of rows from being done and then it is a few inches or cms from being done. Hopefully by the end of this week this pair will be ready for distribution.

Chili #2

Much more of my time has been spent perfecting the peyote stitch increases and decreases to make this:

Jill Wiseman Diagonal Peyote Ornament Cover

I reviewed Jill Wiseman´s YouTube video on how to make this a few time and said to myself, well this should be relatively easy and just plunged forward with the pattern. After all these years on the planet you might think I know myself and my skill set well enough not to make this type of thinking mistake, but you would be dead wrong. It was much harder to do than it looked.

First I started working on this at the end of a day. My days are not necessarily stressful anymore, but at 9 or 10 pm I should not be starting on something new. That evening I started over twice. Next day I started too close to a time when I needed to be walking out the door and needless to say I had to begin again. There was so much undoing and redoing that by the fifth start I had frayed the thread and needed to use fresh thread for the sixth time.

Then I got the first half of the zigzag done and needed to reverse direction. I won´t bore you with the number of starts and stops on that maneuver, but there were several and new thread had to be added again. This would explain why if jewelry is made most people use a thin fishing line made of plastic rather than beading thread. But at long last today, I picked everything up in the morning and yup the pieces fell together. Here´s where I am so far.

One small zig for me, one giant leap in my skills. Charcoal Delicas and Silver Crystal #15 seed beads, BTW

More impressive on the red ball it will go when complete.

Some unsavory words were spoken out loud and far more were thought but the practice did me some good. Now, I understand what I am doing and what things should look like; two huge steps forward. It was however much harder to do than the YouTube video made it look. Of course, I forget Jill Wiseman has made in her words, ¨billions¨ of these things so of course she would make it look easy. And although I figured it out, I am not yet at the stage where I too can make it look easy. For the time being I am happy with making it look right.

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