The last few days I have been thinking about failure and why it is important, even in needlepoint.
Fist I was writing my lesson for CyberPointers about balance in needlepoint. I was looking for good examples, but I found this picture of Autumn Reader for The Red Thread. The canvas is lovely, I still love it, but the project was such a failure I abandoned it.
Then today I was reading a thought-provoking book called Made by Hand, written by Mark Frauenfelder, the Editor in Chief of Make magazine. In one chapter he talks about the importance of failing if you are making DIY projects. When you are learning, especially if the instructions aren’t complete or aren’t there, you will fail, and probably often. But you learn from your mistakes.
The thing that distinguishes hard-core DIYers from the rest of us is that they have the courage to fail. They will do the project, even though it might not work or they may have to make things up as they go along.
I got to thinking about failure in conjunction with this piece. It’s a failure because there isn’t a balance. There are too many stitches (one in each section) and too many textures (one in each section), so the design has no hierarchy and is confused. I know that now; I didn’t then and so instead of narrowing the threads I used, I abandoned the project.
In short, I didn’t have the courage to fail. Because I wasn’t willing to face failure, figure out what was wrong and fix it, I also lacked the courage to succeed.
I think this is a fault that plagues many of us as stitchers. We invest so much time (and money) in needlepoint, we want it to be perfect, or at least wonderful, always.
But how many things in life are like that?
We should embrace the opportunity to fail and then learn from our mistakes. I’m certainly hoping to be braver in the future.
About Janet M Perry
Janet Perry is the Internet's leading authority on needlepoint. She designs, teaches and writes, getting raves from her fans for her innovative techniques, extensive knowledge and generous teaching style. A leading writer of stitch guides, she blogs here and lives on an island in the northeast corner of the SF Bay with her family
Interesting post. I think this can apply to a lot of things is life. Any DIY project really!
I think I am experiencing the failure part of needlepoint. the background on my Far Horizons has me very fruatrated as I don’t know how to make a good decision for the background. I see a lot of frog work coming my way 🙁
I spent a good part of this afternoon frogging pattern darning. It was diagonal lines. The top and left side slanted upper right to lwer left while the right side slanted upper left to lower right.
I found it two rows from the top and left side meeting.
And I spent this evening restitching what I ripped out.
Sigh.
Keep Stitching,
Janet