I’m knitting a bunch of things at the moment and a one of them has had me up and down with doubts and seems to be taking an age to get finished … it turns out, I’ve hit one of those predictable bumps in the knitting road.

Do you know them?

There’s the “OMG what was I thinking?” when we’re about 25% of the way into a project and the thrill of casting on and starting something new is replaced by a “clarity” that we’ve made a horrible mistake.

And then there’s the inevitable 75% crash that happens somewhere close to the end when we nearly rip out the whole thing or chuck it across the room into the pile of “WIPs that will never see the light of day again”.

It’s in those final moments of panic that we doubt we have any taste at all and sometimes even consider changing crafts …

I have 25% and 75% moments with everything I knit.

Every. Single. Thing.

They don’t always come with the same intensity but I’ve had so many now that I’m good at recognising the signs and these days I’m (mostly) able to feel the feelings without taking them too seriously.

Mostly. Sometimes it’s a huge effort!

But, right now I’m in a 25% moment and although I recognise what I’m doing, I can see I’ve been giving into it by slooooowing down … and that tends to look like more distractions and whole lot of less knitting.

It’s not terribly conducive to meeting a deadline!

Bumps aren’t fun, but they don’t have to be the end of the road either. Luckily there are a quite a few things we can do when we start to feel wobbly:

• First, when you feel those wobbly feelings crop up, have a think about where you are in the project. Are you about a quarter or the way in, or almost done? “Aha!” you can think, “25/75 has hit!”
• Even when you realise that you’ve hit a predictable bump it’s sometimes hard not to panic or beat ourselves up. Try not to do that! Remember, it’s knitting. If the worst happens and it does turn out to be super-bad, it can be frogged!
• Try to recall when you’ve felt like this before, because I bet you have. Remind yourself it’ll probably happen again. And, you’ll survive. Oh dear. You’re normal.
• Unless something is screamingly wrong, try just plodding on. Stitch by stitch, row by row. There’s a good chance that you’ll knit the feelings away.
• Note: sometimes it might feel like something is indeed screamingly wrong. My advice? Sleep on it.
• And finally, never make big important decisions like unpicking all your knitting after you should be in bed. I learnt that the hard way. Many times ;)

Righto, time to get back to my knitting and plod on.