When I am creating a piece, whether it's something I've done before or I'm wading into uncharted territory, there is a point in the process that feels too real, like I'm living a life-lesson. My life currently resembles the frog above - I have a plan and the pieces are coming together but it's nowhere near the desired end result, and, more to the point, I don't know if the end result will be close to the original plan. I can tell you the frog has morphed several times. I didn't like the way the feet came out so I went to the internet for a different pattern and ended up using owl feet. I added the belly circle because I wanted a contrasting color. I basically made the eyes by the "I'll just mush these stitches together and hope for a frog-eye shape" method.

Laying it out, all the elements together but not yet connected, it echoed a life-long frustration for me. It's not enough to have the pieces. You have to stitch them together. You have to do the painstaking back-end detail work to get the result you want. It's not glamorous but absolutely necessary, particularly if you want it to last. And sometimes (and here's where the rant truly beings), sometimes you are almost done and you don't like the way it looks. Now you have to decide what to do! Do I take that frog leg off and re-do the whole thing? Can I add some more stitches and force it to take the shape I want? Do I have enough of the right colored yarn to change my mind again? Is it complete folly to wait for the job I want to have instead of taking a job I know I can do but won't feed my soul? Am I focusing on the wrong parts of my life, trying to force them into a shape with late-in-life stitches? In the end, will it matter how I got the pieces to come together or how closely they resemble the original plan? I sure hope not because, originally, this frog was going to be an octopus.