A Little Bit of Interest

I am working on a “surprise” Christmas present for my daughter. Well, I had dreamed that it would be a surprise. But reality dictated that she know – there was no way I was going to be able to create it in secret – she stays up as late as me now, and I can’t spend her whole school day working on it, as much as I would like to.

So she knows that I am knitting her a blanket for Christmas. I saw one like it at Ikea and thought, “Hey, I could make that.” It is a simple beige stockinette stitch with several basic cables running down its length. I love the look of cable knit and thought it would be fun to try making it myself.

I had to start over five or six times, each time learning something I didn’t know I didn’t know. Finally, I was able to continue. However, a twin size blanket is a lot bigger than the scarves and baby blankets I have knit in the past. And Christmas is not moving for me, or anyone, this year, so there is a bit of pressure to keep the blanket growing. At first it would have made a cute snake blanket, but now it would do fine for a very large cat or a medium-sized dog. So I still have a ways to go.

The time crunch has introduced something that I generally don’t accept in my creations – obvious errors. Sometimes I realize right away, or within 20 or so stitches that I messed something up. I go back and fix that right away. But other times I don’t realize I have done something wrong until it becomes noticeable several rows later. I hate seeing the error, but with a deadline looming, I can’t afford to keep going back. I console myself by saying, “The blanket will be so big and will usually be folded up or snuggled around someone, so people won’t notice the mistakes too much.”

I also know that my daughter isn’t a perfectionist so won’t mind. She hasn’t met a blanket she doesn’t love, so I have that going for me, too. And because I am making it for her, she will cut me some slack just because that’s who she is.

Finally, I noticed that, while the errors are quite obvious if you look at the wrong side of the knitting, they are hardly even noticeable when looking at the right side.

All of these things made me think of how God sees our mistakes and how he covers them over with his love so that they don’t ruin our lives, just add a bit of interest – something that draws people closer to find out what’s up, giving us an opportunity to tell them about how God loves and heals us.

Do I purposely knit mistakes into the blanket? Absolutely not. But it is nice to know that a little goof up here or there isn’t the end.