Sarit Knits: I MADE A FREAKING SWEATER

Hello how are you? Guess what? I made a freaking sweater in less than a month! Almost a month. Can you believe it?! You can do anything, everyone. Last night at 4:00 am I finished this. My overall opinions are that I am very proud of myself. I don't really like it, but sometimes I love it just because I made it and I worked really hard on it. It definitely has some points that look really wonky. Like at the front there is this weird dip thing. I had to improvise a lot with the sewing because some points didn't match up. Whoops! One sleeve is longer than the other, The collar is a little wonky. However, it does have a lot of heart. The sleeves look kinda cute with their floofy-ness. You can tell it is a sweater. It is also big on me, and I knew that while I was making it. I think all the ribbing work I did looks good and generally the stitches look good and it overall doesn't have a lot of holes or anything.

Last night as I was finishing this sweater at 4 am (I have no control over my sleep schedule...) I was listening to the Stuff Mom Never Told You podcast episode called Oprah Wasn't Built In A Day and it was very inspiring and helpful for my mental health during this slightly stressful sweater making process. The podcast was about failure and specifically failure pertaining to women. During the making of this sweater over this past month-ish it was mostly fun and I learned a lot. I also knew the sweater would NOT be perfect because it's the first sweater I've ever made! However, towards the end of the making of the sweater, I had some moments of panic. I felt like I've been working on this for basically a month and I felt like it would turn out like a blob not resembling a sweater at all. This would mean I would have wasted a month in my mind. However, this podcast has helped me realize the importance of failure, but also there is a weird culture surrounding failure. A lot of people who generally have a lot of privilege will encourage failure, while people who don't have that luxury will not have failure as an option. Also it is typically men who are pushed to welcome failure, while women are taught to avoid it. (surprise surprise!) However, I don't believe that this sweater is a failure. It is unrealistic of me to expect myself to make a perfect sweater when I've never made one before, had to learn a lot of new techniques, am self taught, and this sweater was self taught made.

Something I've been doing a lot is making the same thing over and over again. This can be great because I master a certain thing. For example, I've made so many of those ribbed hats. I recently found an old ribbed hat that I had made and it is so bad. It has holes in it and it was made on straight needles not circular needles so I had to sew up a side and I it looked gross. I still need to work on my sewing skills. I am the type of person who doesn't read the instructions for board games and then gets frustrated when I don't get how to play. That pertains here because I just wing it and then it looks like shit and I get pissed at myself. Back to the ribbed hats, I recently made one and it is literally perfect in my eyes. I love every inch of it. I would never have gotten there if I hadn't made that hat SO many times.

Anyway, It's also really nice to be making new things and also knowing I have so much more to learn! I love learning. Maybe one day I'll make a sweater with intarsia and it'll be so cool. I want to make one with a giant middle finger on it. That'd be so meta. SO META! I am so excited that I made a freaking sweater! Also I made it in less than a month. I put a lot of work into it and I succeeded in the goal I set for myself. I also made a zine! I worked towards goals that I set for myself during break and I'm super proud of myself. My sister wore my sweater today and it made me happy. Even though it looks pretty crappy, my sister wore it in the house. It's a snow day today! I didn't go outside, though... Maybe I will at some point. I don't know. I'm tired. I stayed up until 4 am working on this sweater. I love this sweater! Imperfections and all. <3

ps. Here's the podcast

pss. I need to knit more!!!! Never stop!