The bane of my existence

One word...Maude.

Maude is a great pattern for a shawl written by my dear pal and yarn matriarch, Courtney Kelly. Wendy tried really hard to get me to start Maude last year around Rhinebeck time...but I wasn't sold. I didn't know if I really liked the shawl and had so many other things on the knitting plate that I let it go.

Then, I found the perfect Koigu at Rosie's. I haven't seen any other like it since...I quickly snatched it up.

Then Molly died and I needed an "easy project." Courtney told me that when she and Max had lost a dog, she designed Maude and it was a grieving project for her. As I started knitting it, I could see what she meant...it was pretty simple once I figured out the little mistakes in the pattern and got going. It was soothing and healing for me while I was feeling pretty crappy.

But for some reason...I just kept messing Maude up and haven't been able to finish her. She makes me angry. I know I can knit her...but when I make mistakes and try to frog back SSK's I get bitched up and all hell breaks loose. It is depressing that after knitting much more difficult projects, I can't knit this one. While on vacation, I screwed her up again. She's been sitting in a knitting bag for about 3 weeks. I am in denial. Maybe if I don't think about her she would just go away. Sadly, she didn't. She remains on the list of projects I've started that just need to get done.

Finally today, I took her to Courtney for yet another intervention. I'm still not very confident about knitting her. I find myself bargaining with her..."please, let me get through this row without screwing up the placement of the yo...please let me purl/knit the double yo correctly..." I knit about 15 rows tonight with modest success. I have come to accept that Maude may require more trips for intervention and support from Courtney. I have come to accept that knitting Maude is a journey for me. And I came to the realization that I better finish the Mother F**ker before Courtney has her baby and isn't as accessible for intervention.

So I highlighted anger, depression, denial, bargaining and acceptance above. Many are familiar with these as Kubler-Ross "5 Stages." These stages were originially written by Kubler Ross after her qualitative study with dying people and were supposed to describe "the" stages of death and dying. They have since been applied to pretty much everything in the loss and bereavement field...much to the chagrin of many of us advanced grief/bereavement/end of life care practitioners. I've been working really hard to get people in both of my employment settings to think outside the Kubler Ross box when thinking about loss. But here I am, going right back to them to describe my relationship with a knitting project...cosmic Kubler Ross karma...maybe; but then again maybe I too need to listen to my own advice and think outside the box with Maude.