Tortellini

One of my favourite cartoons ever was Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watersen. Of all the ones he drew when he was still drawing C&H, this has always been my favourite:

I like it because this was me as a child. Afraid to try something because I might not like it.
Operative word: might.

I am sometimes like this when it comes to knitting. I look at the picture of a beautiful pattern and I think, "Wow, that's so cool, I'd like to make that for someone." Then I read the pattern and discover there is a particular stitch I don't know how to do, and rather than asking someone's help, or looking up a video on the internet, I determine that I don't know how to do this, so I can never do this, and so, lovely pattern be damned, I'll never make it.

I have a lot of patterns in my collection that I've determined I'll  never be able to make.

So, one of my New Year's resolutions is to learn how to do stitches I don't know how to do. Little things, like knitting through the back. If I am unable to do it on the internet, then I'll ask one of the many knitting mavens I know. I refuse to be limited in my knitting any longer.

Oh, crap. I guess this extends to learning to read charts. There are a lot of things I'd like to make that are only charted, but I've never really learnt the secrets of charts (yes, I can read Hebrew and Arabic, and I can puzzle my way through Cyrillic alphabets, but knitting charts just stymie me). Le sigh. I think I have a steep learning curve ahead of me next year.