What Is the Opposite of Unravel?
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9 February 2012
So I am teaching myself to knit.
In this picture are three swatches — practice pieces for three different kinds of stitches. Hoorah! I can do three different kinds of stitches!
But that pile of yarn is the unraveled mess of a scarf I started. I was going along pretty good there for a while, maybe 1/4 of the way… then suddenly it all went wrong. I didn’t know what had happened or what had gone wrong, and the more I tried to figure it out, the worse it got. I’d unravel a section, then try to restart from that point forward, but then it became clear that I wasn’t restarting correctly, so the mess reiterated itself, and then I’d unravel a little more, etc. In other words, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to save what I’d done; I had to unravel the whole damn thing.
The writing analogy is a little frightening to consider.
That 1/4 scarf existed; I’m the only one who knows this, can verify it. Was it a “waste” of time? Well, at least I learned to slow down, and to pay attention. My next lesson will be teaching myself how to fix mistakes.
Unraveling takes seconds. The word is onomatopoetic, it slips off the tongue. When we make something, build something, stitch by stitch, word by word, it is definitely not raveling.
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I had such a similar experience this week, but with a hat. Not enjoyable.
Maybe the opposite of unravel is simply knitting, or joining, or weaving.