What knitting teaches us about perseverance

You’d think that after years of knitting, I’d be some kind of stitch-counting, pattern-perfect machine. Nope. I still mess up. A lot. Sometimes, I use a different yarn and needle size to what’s indicated on the pattern and charge ahead without knitting a gauge and then I wonder why my sweater suddenly fits like a toddler’s onesie. Other times, I can, for example, knit a simple seed stitch but skip a stitch without noticing until I’m 10 centimetres in.

But here’s the thing—it’s okay.

Because knitting, much like life, isn’t about getting everything right the first time. It’s about how we handle things when they don’t go as planned. Sometimes, it’s our own mistakes that throw us off course. Other times, things just don’t work out the way we expected.

Either way, we have two choices: give up or start again.

In knitting, we have a term for undoing work known as “frogging”. It comes from the sound a frog makes—“ribbit, ribbit”—which sounds like “rip it, rip it.” It might seem frustrating to unravel something you spent hours working on, but frogging is an essential part of the process. No matter how experienced you are, you’ll always have moments where you have to pull back and start over.

Knitting teaches perseverance. It reminds us that progress isn’t always about moving forward—sometimes you need to backtrack to get where you really want to go. And that’s okay. Because the end result is always worth it.

When I realise I’ve gone wrong, my first reaction is obviously frustration and disappointment. But once the initial annoyance fades, I take a deep breath and do what needs to be done. I unravel and then carefully slide the stitches back onto the needles, adjust, and keep going. That moment—of fixing what’s broken and setting things right—is just as much a part of the craft as knitting itself. It’s a quiet discipline, a willingness to accept what happens and move forward without dwelling on the setback.

It’s the same in life. Things don’t always go our way. Sometimes, circumstances force us to pivot, and sometimes, we’re the ones who mess up. Either way, the choice is the same: stay stuck or pick up the pieces and keep going. Learning how to correct mistakes—without self-judgment, without resistance—is a skill worth cultivating, both in knitting and in life.

The more I knit, the more I realise that getting it right first time is never the goal. The goal is to enjoy the process and when things do go wrong, they can be made right again. Every time I rip back a section of stitches, I remind myself: this is part of it. It doesn’t mean I’ve failed. It just means I’m willing to do what’s necessary to get it right.

So the next time life throws you off course—or you find yourself unravelling hours of work—remember that it’s not the mistake that defines you. It’s how you handle it. Take a deep breath. Rip it back if you need to. And start again.