The stole and the Sump Pipe: how a project changed my life

So. I don’t know if you remember my City Stole. Do you remember my City Stole? I tried to get a good outdoors shot for you, but, look! Look how windy it is! It’s windy all over the UK today I think, and now in Cambridge it’s raining, but I’m here on the computer with a nice cup of tea so I don’t mind.

This was the point at which I nearly had to rescue it from next door's garden

I thought when I finished my City Stole I might not wear it much, because I thought it was too long, but it turns out, it’s the perfect length, and I’ve worn it loads. It looks dramatic if I wrap it round once, and it’s just long enough to wrap round two times. The thing I wanted to tell you about it, though, is that this (portentous music – dum dum DUM) – is the stole that changed my life. No, I’m serious. It has changed how I think about things. And I shall tell you why.

Photography tip number 1: try not to do it in a gale

Those of you who are experienced/ adventurous knitters will be looking at this and thinking, hmm, a few yarnovers. That is not hard. And you are right: however, while I was knitting this stole, I was conscious that there was a point in my knitting career when I would not have been able to knit it. I would have become confused. I would have given up. There were points towards the beginning where I had to unknit quite a bit, and I managed to get back on track: once, I would not have been able to do this with lace. So while I was knitting it I was conscious that my skills were better than they had been at a point in the past. And as you can imagine, that was cheering.

The magic, however, was in the persistence necessary to knot this stole out of three long balls of string (I speak metaphorically). All my life (violins), I have had trouble sticking at things. I do not do sustained effort. I do one-off flashy feats of intense amazingness that are sufficiently amazing to compensate (almost) for the sustained effort issue. I think it is also fair to say that nothing in my life has ever particularly encouraged the development of sustained-effort skills, whereas the one-off flashy feats have always been rather popular. And this, readers, is not a great way to live. Because, there are many wonderful skills that one might wish to have, but without willpower and sticking at them through the tedious bits, the bits where you feel you are worse at it than when you started, the bits where you question why you are doing it anyway, the bits where you feel you’ve messed it up so much it isn’t worth finishing, you aren’t going to acquire them. And this is what this stole did for me. It showed me I could finish something and love the end result, even when the steps along the way are non-flashy and routine. It was an act of faith. It linked routine effort to result for me. It showed me I could stick at things. It showed me (violins swell to a crescendo now) I could change. It was like meditation: meditation in wool. I mean, where it got me was crocheting a million granny squares, but, look: I would never have been able to do that before the stole. Before the Stole Which Changed Everything.

I swear they wait and jump out at me. It's actually a bit alarming. Perhaps I'm just attuned. I hope I never start seeing goblins

The other week our washer broke and leaked water all over the kitchen (bear with me, this is relevant!). A John Lewis man came and patronised Partner terribly, because apparently we should have known we had a blocked Sump Pipe, then he charged Partner £60 for the privilege of being patronised and left. When I came home Partner told me he had been patronised, and did we ought to have known about the sump pipe? And I said, I was not going to feel bad about lack of sump pipe knowledge, because, I could knit lace and I was convinced the sump pipe man could not: and so as far as I was concerned, he could stick that sump pipe right up his bum. And then I rang John Lewis and told them off, and they refunded me £30. Because no-one is patronising a person who has knitted a City Stole (and if I had finished the epic granny square project I could probably have made them give me £60). You see, it is almost like having self esteem. I think the stole is magic. That is my firm belief.

Do you have a Project That Changed Your Life?