As a child, I learned to think of Friday the thirteenth as a date to be feared, but as an adult, I have come to appreciate Friday the thirteenths and all that they have to offer. Today, I used it as an excuse to work on the baker’s dozen of a baker’s dozen cookieghan.
The first order of business (because it was the easiest task of all that remain for this project) was to attach the cookies of row nine, one to another:
and mark the spaces where future joins would be made.
Row nine forms the base of what will be a strip of cookies three rows wide that also includes rows eight and seven.
Row six will then be a major join where the cookies of row six are joined to each other as they are joined to row five and row seven. Row six will no doubt be an awkward and difficult join, but it will be a big leap forward when it is completed.
The next task that awaited me involved some remediation.
Yesterday I had begun work on the other three-row strip of cookies beginning with row 13. I had made good progress joining rows 13 and 12, but as I moved from left to right, joining the cookies of row 12 to each other and row 13, I noticed that I had reversed the five right most cookies of row 13 in a moment of inattention. This required that I do a small bit of frogging and rejoining, and after I had finished row nine, I frogged what needed frogging and reworked the row:
I suppose it would be nice if I could crochet without error; if each project could be completed without a missed stitch or a need to unravel my work.
But it could be that my supposition is all wrong.
Maybe the errors we make form an intrinsic part of the value of the finished object. Maybe it is the errors and imperfections that give the object a human touch, and maybe it is the transmission of that human touch that gives the object any value at all.
I’ve always loathed mistakes in my work, wanting the projects to be perfect. Thanks for reminding me that my mistakes set my work apart as handmade gifts and not factory-made repeats.