My vest center RS           I am crocheting a vest. I like to crochet and I usually do projects for everyone else but this one, it’s for me. Probably for that reason, I don’t get much time to work on it. If I was doing it for you, I would be rushing, stressing and burning the midnight oil, but this time, I am working when I have time, when the light is right and I am relaxing into it.

It is made with a very fine, wool silk combination in rich colours. Because of the size of the wool, stitches slip and I find myself undoing frequently. Well, actually I am undoing a lot because I am not working with a pattern. I don’t follow a pattern well. Yesterday when I was undoing other hard won section I looked at it and sighed. It’s not that I don’t know how to follow a pattern or understand the short forms for the required stitches; it’s just that I can’t do it. In the midst of ripping I think I figured out the connection to the rest of my life. I don’t walk on the path well; I want to be in the field. I don’t want fences, I want wide open spaces, I don’t like to plot my writing, I like it to flow…I guess, I don’t like to follow a pattern, I like to experiment, rip out bits that don’t work and figure it out by myself. I like to re-invent the wheel.

I know, I know, why re-invent the wheel. But it looks so easy my way, so much more fun so…. well, I can see advantages to rolling with the already tested. The vest will turn out a certain way if I follow the steps, but, it is fun to do it myself. I won’t claim to be overly creative, I saw the Stevie Nix bohemian vest years ago and decided I have to have it, or at the very least, a version of it. I don’t know if I will ever wear it, although it looked great on Stevie Nix. I just want to experience it. Maybe that is why adventurers climb mountains, something you won’t find me doing any time soon.

So, my novel is done by the seat of my pants, as is my crocheting and I guess so is my life. There are others of us doing life without the pattern. In the end we will end up at the same place the pattern users do but maybe it will just take us a little longer to get there and we will see different scenery along the way.      stevie nix vest RS