The Next Stitch

Sometimes you just have to knit the next stitch.

Pay attention, now.  This is applicable.

Even if you lost the pattern and you don't remember how to do a short row with a wrap and turn.  Maybe you're in the digital woods and there is no wi-fi, you've got zero bars, and knitty.com cannot help you now.  Maybe you're in the actual woods knitting on fir branches.  Doesn't matter.

Sometimes you've got half a sock dangling from your needles and it's time to turn that heel and there's nothing for it but to dig in.  Even if you can't quite remember if you centered eight or ten stitches on the heel of the first sock.  Or if you don't know if you're supposed to knit one after the decrease or not.  Your stitches are twisted. You’ve lost count. There comes a day, a time, a moment when frogging is just not an option and you must plunge forth.

Ask yourself what's the worst that can happen?

This sock may not perfectly match the first one you knit that's sitting on the bureau at home.  This pair?  They may not take the blue ribbon at the county fair.  It's even possible that one, on close inspection, will look slightly different from the other.

Sometimes you have to take stock, look around you, and say, "This is where I'm standing, this is what I have before me to do, and this is the best I can do right here and right now."  And that may not be the best you can do, generally speaking, or the best you've ever done.  And it's probably not the best you wish you could do.  But standing right here, right now, with these tools at hand, this is the best you can do it.

Sometimes you have to grab those needles and just knit that stitch.

And I'm not talking about socks.

Hell, I'm not even talking about knitting.

But it's applicable.