So, not last Friday, but the Friday before I posted my successful new Jill’s Sweater, with the re-wound yarn from my Jill’s Dress in my Fashion Friday post. This sweater has become a new staple of my wardrobe. I have been wearing it so much, that I have actually even already noticed some slight pilling, ARGH! But it is a small price to have something new that I love so much, and is so unique.

You know, I have come to a very important realization recently: It is only as hard as I let it be.

“What?” you say. “That sounds Dumb.”
No really though, it is true.

This goes back to recently reading Yarn Harlot, by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. I find myself thinking a lot about this book these days. The chapter currently in my thoughts is titled “Three Blankets,”  which is a broad—but personal—view about the learning curve of both having a child, children, and also about knitting. The blanket that she made for her first daughter, while at the time she thought was quite lovely, she grew to see later as “messy” and “horrible,” made from nasty acrylic. The blankets made for both of her successive children were far more successful. She talks about how, somehow, magically, it just got easier with each child, and then I realized, this isn’t the first time I’ve heard this. In fact, almost every parent I have ever asked has said it got easier with the second child.

Why is this?

Is it because we just have no freaking clue about what we’re doing with the first one? Everything must be researched, looked-up, looked into, worried over, washed, sterilized, sanitized, nutritional-ized, and beyond? Is it just that we are so tired by the time the second or third one arrives that we really don’t care if they’re sitting on the floor, licking the carpet at the bank? Or is it because we realize that that small stuff really doesn’t matter so much? If the poopy jammies don’t get washed RIGHT NOW, by God, the Earth is just going to keep on turning …

So, maybe we do this to ourselves.

Wow, there’s a thought.

And … maybe this is a silly thing to do?

I’ve recently started watching Mad Men, from the beginning of the first season. I’ve not watched it before, so it is all new to me, but everyone I’ve ever asked about it says the same thing, “It is amazing, you must watch!” I really haven’t had much any time for watching anything recently. Now that the Little Buckaroo is bigger and AWAKE AND ACTIVE so much, we’ve started going to the park more, and Gymboree pretty much daily, just trying to wear him out. I can’t remember in which exact episode this came up, but it is before episode 7 of the first season, as that is as far as I have made it since I started watching at the beginning of the month. In the episode, Don Draper is consulting with his wife’s therapist, when he the therapist comments that the problems she is having with feeling overwhelmed by taking care of the children and the household, likens Betty’s to being a child herself. Ouch. Yes, I understand this is a period piece, taking place in the 60′s when social views were quite extremely different than they are today, but hell, I am having problems keeping up, and I am feeling overwhelmed. Am I just not owning up to my duties? Am I a whiner? Or, perhaps, I am just making things too hard.

I think that Stephanie is onto something with the knitting simile. I kept my very first real project, but alas, I did not keep my original “learning to knit” swatches. I kept ripping them out, bent on not wasting the yarn and hell bent on perfection. It seems like a funny thing now. I spent so much time—hours—making those swatches. They were terrible. My first project, a simple ribbed scarf with pretty wine colored burgundy wool isn’t perfect, but I still love it. I love that I made it. I love that I went into a real yarn store with my sister where she helped me pick it out. I had no idea what I was doing, but I had an idea, a memory of a scarf that I fell in love with when I lived in Italy. I knew, deep down, that my scarf wouldn’t come out the same, as it was to be my first project, and so I didn’t try to recreate my vision. I just tried to make something great. I picked my battles with that scarf. I didn’t know how to fix mistakes, so I tried my best, and then I just let them be. I remember binding-off with instructions written in a note on my cell phone through the worst plane turbulance I have ever been in, a huge storm in January of 2010, on my way back from the craziest photo-shoot trip of my life. Feeling like vomiting, I finished my bind-off with about 12 inches of yarn. I was so thrilled I showed the business-man next to me, “Wow, that is really amazing. I’ve never made anything like that. My wife tried knitting, but it is just so hard.” I felt to proud.

Since then my skills have improved, and my standards raised. A lot. No, A LOT, a lot. So, when it came time to re-do my sleeves for my Jill’s Dress/Sweater, I was happy to dive right in, at long last, but I certainly had expectations about exactly what I wanted, and knew I would except nothing less. All of my knitting books have been packed away for months now. The instructions for how to make this sleeve? Or even one like it? Freaking gone. Fifteen boxes lie between me and those instructions. So what to do now? I write lots of patterns, but I have only done this type of inset sleeve, worked in the round, picking up stitches once before.

It is only as hard as I let it be.

Damn it. I made these sleeves once before. I just said that I did, and I remember what it was like, don’t I? Have confidence, Julie!

I vaguely remembered making them for my Feather Dress (above), from the same book of patterns as the Jills Dress … Pick up the stitches in a circle. Mark the center at the shoulder. Mark the center at the underarm/join to work in the round. Work to center stitch. Work X number of stitches (I don’t remember an exact number but I do remember it was not many!) past that. Work and turn, work and turn, work and turn, work and turn, and an inset sleeve is beautiful grown from the shoulder center.

That’s it, just let it grow. Take notes on what I’ve done so that I can recreate it on the other side. Some basic math based on the gauge and the rest of the sleeves quickly completed, also in the round. Just like that. I didn’t let it be hard, and so, it wasn’t.

I love this sweater now. I just, freaking love it. I wear it at night when I am knitting, even if it is too warm. I love the deep, rich purple. I love the variegation in the yarn. I love the warmth. I love things about it that I normally don’t really like. The sleeves only took a day each, and that was really just working on them in the evenings. I really do wish that I had done this sooner, but emotionally with the project I just wasn’t ready yet. I was worried about not having anything to look up about the technique. I was worried about ripping out my hard work for the dress and regretting it. In the end, I found that the yarn-rewind was cathartic. I don’t regret making the dress before, and I also don’t with that I’d just started with the sweater. I think it was the right time, and I was mentally and skill wise in the right place to rewind, and let it be. It’s not a bad thing to make mistakes, or change our minds. It’s not bad to feel overwhelmed, and like you may not be able to do something, especially without any damn books around. But it is only as hard as I let it be.

I tell myself this new mantra every day. Actually, in all honesty, probably about 100 times per day. It is only as hard as I let it be. The baby is teething, and it is hard. We are remodeling our house and I don’t get to spend any time with my husband, and it is hard. We are living in a cramped apartment that we don’t fit in, and can’t baby proof, and it is hard. But, It is only as hard as I let it be. I can either choose to take him on the errands while screaming, or not. Sometimes these things just NEED to get done, and as much as he hates being in the car, and WILL NOT sleep, I can do it, but I don’t need to over-do it. When I need help, ask for it. As my sister says, instead of just assuming that other people know what I need, I need to tell them. Instead of just saying, “I need help,” tell them WHAT I need help with, specifically. I can do that,  it is not hard. It is only as hard as I let it be.

Like Betty in Mad Men, I do feel overwhelmed, and this is going to happen. It doesn’t make me a child for feeling overwhelmed with my baby, or with my house. It means that I am riding and climbing the learning curve, and I’ve gotten to a steep part. I need to figure it out. Take a step back, rewind (literally, or figuratively, whatever the best scenario is). Take a new step forward. It is only as hard as I let it be.

In the last week or so that I have been working on this things have gotten a lot better. Yes, Ramon has been staying home a lot more than before (meaning, more than from 7:30 at night until 10:30 at night). He’s helping with the dishes, and making sure I get out by myself for an hour here, or a couple of hours there. And, yes, I did tell him that I needed this but things have still been a lot better either way. Crabby Pants has his first tooth! So a small  break in the teething … for now. We’ve also discovered his LOVE for balloons. Gymboree helps a lot, too, giving us something fun and exhausting—in a good way—for the Little Buckaroo, too.

I am not perfect. Following my new Mantra isn’t easy, and sometimes even seems impossible. I know I still have a LONG, LONG, LONG way to go—my baby isn’t licking the floor at the bank anytime soon, but those plastic balls and mats at Gymboree? Sure, go ahead and lick those.