Ugly

Hey, I'm finished with my first afghan block except for weaving in the ends. It's the simplest of the simple--done in stockingette stitch, and decorated with a pinwheel flower in the center. I don't know what I was thinking, but I used a variegated acrylic yarn in pale colors (and for those of you who know my general preferences, this is already wierd). Actually, I do know what I was thinking: "Omigosh, the opening ceremonies are starting, and I haven't dug out my charity afghan yarns yet! Oh, wait, I'll just quickly finish this little scarf for my latest stuffed bear and then I'll cast on with the same yarn. It's perfect--it won't shrink!" A few rows into the block I realized that this was going to be rather uninteresting. That's when I decided on the flower embellishment. A raging debate began in my head: "I should pull this out and start over.Everyone else is doing phenomenally pretty blocks. This one's going to be the leper of the bunch." "No way! Don't let your pride overtake you. Just get a block done. It'll blend. It'll look better with a flower." So, I knit.

This morning, I sheepishly showed my wierd block to Rob. His job was to tell me, "It's not so bad. The flower definitely improves it." He didn't do his job. Instead, we both started laughing and he said, "Yep, that's ugly!" I teased him and pretended to be indignant, but you know, he's right. He tried to make it better by praising my knitting skills--they're "perfect" now, of course--and it was wholly the yarn's fault for being unexciting. We both laughed a lot over breakfast about this. Poor inglorious little block. Orphan block. Can we still take pity on this block?

I will post a photo later on, if only to help the rest of you feel better about whatever it is you're working on. I think I've only ever made one thing worse than this, and that was a pair of baby booties that would have made Frankenstein blush. Interestingly enough, I was also using an acrylic variegated yarn that was left over from someone else's project, but in truly toxic colors. I guess I'm just out of my element.