Frogging, the secret to my success

One thing I want to say to all the novices out there: please, please don't feel bad about ripping out (aka frogging). I've been knitting for decades and get lots of compliments on my work, but I still do it at least once in every project.

You're only human, and no one will know if you ripped something out 10 times before you got the feel of the pattern. Whenever people praise my knitting I always say, "ask my husband how many swear words went into this one!"

Then again, you can just learn to rewrite the pattern as you go. In any case, learn to love your mistakes; that's how you learn.

And for those who need to frog a lot and knit with wool: learn a good technique for relaxing the yarn before you knit it back up. It makes all the difference.

I totally agree with this. I frog more than I care to admit. I like my finished project so much more.

I'll admit to having a learning skein, which I use whenever I want to try something new without investing money in yarn. I'll knit up something until I get the hang of it, then rip the whole thing apart and roll it back up. This ball of yarn has seen quite a few experiments, from cabling to fisherman's rib to an attempt at snowflake ornaments.

I do advise against willy-nilly frogging if you're using mohair. That is one experiment that never works.

My knitting got a whole lot "better" -- at least in terms of the finished product -- when I started giving myself permission to frog as needed.

So what if I knit for 2 or 3 hours on my wretched little product? I look at it as somewhat like Extensive Swatching, getting the pattern down, not to mention finding out how really the gauge works out!

It's a lot like throwing out the first pancake from the griddle. Sometimes the pancake turns out perfectly, so those get eaten, but I go into a pancake griddling expecting the first try to be sacrificial, and I'm all happy if it isn't!

'Perfect' is the enemy of 'good.'

I don't know if this is "frogging," but I made my husband a couple of Lopi vests that he wouldn't wear b/c they were too scratchy. I ripped them out and knitted up bags, felted them and donated them to a charity silent auction where they went for more than $50 each.

Effort well spent.

Counts to me. Frogging is whenever you rip it, rip it.

Heh -- I'd almost call that repurposing, when you rip back an entire finished work(s) to make something much more useful/beloved!

Ah, rip it rip it--I didn't get the "frogging" allusion. Clever!

I'm not a huge fan of Maggie Righetti, but one of her good maxims is to admire your work frequently, and if you aren't admiring it, rip it out and try something else.

Why waste your time?

# 3 I second the problems with frogging mohair. It sticks.

When I was learning as a child I used to take all my mistakes to my Mom and let her take them of the needles and rip back -now I get satisfaction out of doing it. Because it looks so much better when it is right.