Everyday Joggers | Itch-to-Stitch Tierras

After finishing my Colette Zinnia skirt, I had enough of the sage green fabric leftover for one more project. A top would have been the obvious choice, but this sleeveless number is already pretty much perfect for me, I wasn’t feeling a boxy tee, and besides, I had a more pressing need: comfortable pants. Since I started working from home, I’ve been rotating between the same identical pairs of black leggings and my tartan pajama pants; the latter have been worn and washed so many times they developed a hole in the bum. While they waited to be repaired, I decided to see if I could eke out a pair of pants from my remaining mystery yardage.

Remembering that joggers had had a moment (more than five years ago, geez, am I slow to a trend or what?), I did a little searching around and landed on the Itch-to-Stitch Tierras, which had three things to recommend them:

  1. Designed for lightweight wovens
  2. Low-rise fit right out of the virtual envelope
  3. Deep, deep pockets

Bonus: Itch-to-Stitch is based in North Carolina, in nearby Sanford. Hi neighbor!

When I say the Itch-to-Stitch Tierras pockets are deep, I mean that wrinkle some six inches below the pocket opening is the bottom of the pocket bag.

The PDF pattern went together without any issues, and the provided instructions were quite thorough, including—hallelujah!—the finished garment measurements. Based on those measurements, I opted to shorten the inseam by a whopping 4″ and raise the front and back rise by 1″.

Now, I well and truly hopped on the low rise train in high school and I’ve never looked back, but after comparing the rise measurements to several pairs of stretch woven pants I already own, I was concerned they’d be too low even for my tastes. I’m only 5’2″, so if you’re average height or above, definitely check the rise before diving in.

Since my changes were significant, I made a muslin using an old cotton sateen bedsheet. It was the closest match I had to my fashion fabric in terms of weight and drape, but it wasn’t an objectively close match. I figured if the muslin came out okay I could wear them as pajamas, and if it didn’t, I could still cut the fabric down into pocket bags or handkerchiefs or something.

Let me tell you, the muslin very nearly did me in. Not because anything went wrong—again, the preparation and assembly instructions are clear—but because the fabric was different enough that the practice pants were crazy unflattering. They stuck out at the hips, stood away from my thighs but clung to my calves, and generally looked horrible to me. I wavered mightily, not wanting to waste the last bit of my nice fabric on wadder.

Justin observed that the altered length and rise, the two things I was actually checking on the muslin, were, in fact, good. He persuaded me to press onward, and he was right: the thinner, drapier fabric looks and feels loads better than the muslin did.

I briefly despaired about running out of fabric for both pieces of both pockets, then I remembered I had a bit of cream rayon bemberg leftover from this other sage green project that I could use for the pocket facings, which are invisible from the outside. The bemberg is a nice match in weight for my main fabric and a pleasure to slide your hands into. Hooray for saving scraps and shopping le stash for creative solutions!

I used the prescribed 1.5″ elastic for the waist, but sized down to a 3/4″ elastic for the cuffs since it’s what I had on a hand and my slightly wobbly stitching meant that the recommended 1″ elastic would have been a tight fit. For both the waistband and the cuffs I attached the casings to the inside of the garment and then wrapped them to the outside and topstitched down. This is the opposite of what the instructions call for, but when topstitching I prefer not having to worry about whether I’m catching the casing on the inside, so this has turned into a normal adjustment for me.

I stitched buttonholes in the waistband for a drawstring per the pattern, but after wearing them several times I don’t think I’m going to bother with one; I don’t have another self fabric left for one, and I doubt I’d be able to find cord in the right color. My buttonhole placement is off, which means the topstitching on the waistband meander drunkenly to avoid sewing through them, but I love the overall look of the waistband too much to care. I dig the slightly sporty vibe it gives, I guess?

Honestly, the Itch-to-Stitch Tierras have been such a surprise to me all around. While I was specifically looking for a jogger silhouette, I more than half expected to feel meh about the outcome and never actually wear them. Instead I reach for them several times a week, often wearing them two days in a row. They’re also nice enough (in my opinion) that they don’t need to be relegated to the realm of house clothes. I personally love to throw them on to pick up takeout and pretend I’m an undercover celebrity.

These pants will continue to see weekly wear as the temperatures slowly cool off. Eventually I’ll want to switch them out for the season to something warmer, like French terry. An excuse to pick up the True Bias Hudsons, perhaps?


Outfit Details

Camisole: Aeropostale | Pants: Itch-to-Stitch Tierras | Sandals: Naturalizer | Sunglasses: Target | Earrings: Gift/unknown | Bracelet: Gift/unknown

A Pocket Full of Posies | Colette Zinnia

Over the years, my interest in Colette Patterns has waxed and waned. Initially enchanted by the idea of a small, independent sewing pattern company with a cohesive aesthetic, I quickly came crashing back to reality when I remembered that I don’t actually wear close-fitting woven dresses with a vintage vibe. My interest piqued again a few years later when they started offering knit patterns, and again when Seamwork launched, but I never quite loved anything enough to take the plunge. (Although I must say, Leah’s enthusiasm for Seamwork has very nearly convinced me to get a subscription!) I’d already stashed a bunch of Big 4 patterns that I hadn’t cut into yet, so it was hard to justify buying more—and more expensive—patterns.

So what changed? It’s embarrassingly simple, really: I was checking out Freeman’s Creative Craft Supply in Durham for the first time and they had a handful of Colette patterns on sale, a result of Colette announcing they were discontinuing paper pattern production. Unable to resist the combination of a vanishing product + a deep discount + a sense of duty to support the small craft businesses of the world, I scooped up several patterns I’d eyed over the years, including the Colette Zinnia.

I doubt there’s much to say about the pattern that hasn’t been said before by much more accomplished sewists than me, so rather than a review I’ll stick to what I did.

The fabric is something of a mystery, a lightweight plain weave made from natural fiber(s) that both wrinkles and presses easily with heat and humidity; it’s the same fabric as this top. It’s wonderfully pleasant to wear and I wish I had ten more yards of it, but sadly it was a hand-me-down from my mom and I have no idea where or even when she got it. I think she intended to use it for window valances.

I went with View 1, which has a gathered skirt attached to a waistband, a button placket, and patch pockets with flaps. I cut a size 8, preferring to err on the side of a larger waist since like most people my measurements fluctuate and I abhor the feeling of anything too snug on my midriff. I didn’t bother to adjust the length for my shorter-than-average height since it’s designed to fall below the knee anyway.

To keep the waistband from being too big, I took a page from Cashmerette’s book and added an elastic to the back waist only. I was inspired by this tutorial, but since her construction order is different from that of the Colette Zinnia and I’d already sewn up the side seams—which I French seamed and then edgestitched down to produce a mock felled seam—I had to improvise a bit:

  • Cut the waistband pattern piece apart at the side seam circles to create front waistband and back waistband pattern pieces
  • Add 5/8″ seam allowances to the new front and back waistband pattern pieces
  • Cut front and back waistband from fabric; interface the front waistband piece only
  • Sew front and back waistband pieces together at side seams
  • Attach waistband to inside of skirt (rather than outside)
  • Calculate elastic length using Cashmerette tutorial and cut a piece of 1.25″ no-roll elastic to length
  • Cut two rectangles of fabric measuring 2″ x 1.25″ and stitch one rectangle to each end of elastic
  • Place the elastic along the inside of back waistband and sew the rectangles into the side seams
  • Fold waistband over to the outside and topstitch in place, stretching the back elastic to fit as you sew

Other notes include edgestitching everything, using three rows of basting stitches to gather the skirt, and not interfacing the placket. (To be clear, the instructions don’t call for interfacing, but that seemed odd to me, so I tried it anyway. As it turns out, a narrow cut-on placket doesn’t need it because of the layers of fabric involved, and I ended up peeling the interfacing off before re-sewing it. It seems Colette knew what they were about with this one.)

I very much wanted to use buttons from my stash on this one, since I had these cream-and-brown marbled ones harvested from somewhere that looked perfect. But they were 5/8″ instead of 1/2″ (not a huge problem) AND I didn’t have enough (*sob*). I ended up purchasing these two-hole buttons from JoAnn, which are described as brown but are really more of a dark coppery color and have a slightly reflective quality due to the ridged pattern in their surface.

Because the buttons came in packs of four, I had enough to add buttons to the pockets, but opted not to. I figure if I lose any along the way, I’ll have replacements on hand, and I won’t have to steal them off the pockets, leaving behind orphaned buttonholes.

My one regret may be not adding inseam pockets. I love the look of the patch pockets, but I really wish I had a place to put my hands. I even thought about adding some during the cutting-out stage, but decided they would be unnecessary. I have no one to blame but myself for this foolish lack of foresight.

If I were to make the Colette Zinnia again—and I feel like I will—the only thing I’d change besides the pocket situation would be to tinker with that back elastic waistband. I like it in principle, but in practice I should have cut the fabric portion longer so that it can gather/stretch more. Because I kept the original waistband length intact, it (surprise, surprise) doesn’t expand enough to allow the skirt to come on and off without unbuttoning. Because, you know, the original elastic-free skirt wasn’t intended to be taken on and off that way. Go figure. The no-roll elastic might also be a bit aggressive, and it can definitely still irritate when I’m feeling stuffed from the local food trucks.

While I don’t think I’d reach for this skirt every day, as I’m not much of an everyday skirt wearer, I love that it coordinates with a bunch of different tops already in my closet and in my sewing queue. I’m already looking forward to remixing it with other things I’ve made. Three cheers for wardrobe-boosting separates!


Outfit Details

Hat: Target | Camisole: Banana Republic | Skirt: Colette Zinnia | Sandals: Aerosoles | Earrings: Vintage | Necklace: Jenuinely Jeni | Bracelet: Gift/unknown

Everything Gold Must Stay

When lockdown started, it was still cool enough to wear sweaters. I alternated between wearing my tartan pajama pants with a fitted v-neck sweater and wearing leggings with a tunic. A frequent entry in my work-from-home loungewear rotation was a store-bought oversized sweater in pine green with a statement cable down the front; double moss stitch on the sides, back, and three-quarter sleeves; and a deep cowl neck. If it has any faults, it’s that it’s a loosely knit cotton with wrist-baring sleeves, so it’s not suited to particularly chilly days. I wanted a sweater with a similarly relaxed fit, but in wool with full-length sleeves.

Initially I was drawn to the idea of a sweatshirt sweater, and I even downloaded, swatched for, and started knitting Alicia Plummer’s Ease. After several attempts to achieve gauge—super important on a top-down raglan in the round—I prevailed and went on to knit most of the body before trying it on and HATING the way it looked on me. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the pattern,  nor can I say with certainty that it’s a bad silhouette for my personal fit preferences. I suspect the Malabrigo Rios wasn’t the ideal yarn choice: the 100% wool worsted yarn is a little too thick and a little too structured for the relaxed but not frumpy look I was going for, and it managed to skim too closely in front while bagging out too much in the back. To the frog pond it went.

For my second attempt, I turned to CustomFit, specifically the Catboat design. This was my first time picking a drop-shoulder instead of a set-in sleeve, and I agonized about getting the body and sleeve widths correct. After comparing the measurements on my only two drop-shoulder sweaters, I settled on an average (rather than relaxed) fit, a sleeve cast on of 8 inches, and a bicep width of 13.25 inches.

The central cable panel was borrowed from the #02 Cable-Panel Turtleneck design in Knit Simple Magazine’s Winter 2012/13 issue. Thanks go to my sister for giving me the magazine as a gift several years ago; I’m glad I could finally put it to good use!

I opted to add a purl row between the ribbing and the stockinette on the body and sleeves. This same detail shows up on my inspiration sweater, and I like how it define the separate sections, particularly since the cables don’t flow neatly out of the ribbing.

Overall I’m very happy with the fit of the sleeves, but I do wish the body had turned out longer, and I can’t help but feel like the back is a wee bit baggier than it really needs to be. I still don’t feel like I’ve exactly nailed my preferred fit with CustomFit, but I do feel like I’m getting closer each time, and in this case the length issue comes down to how the swatch was blocked (aggressively) versus how the sweater was blocked (much more gently).

I’m also on the fence about the neck. To be clear, I like a deep, snuggly cowl, but I’m annoyed that the instructions result in one that doesn’t fold at least in half. Despite multiple attempts, my picked up edge at the neckline isn’t as tidy as I’d like, and I’d prefer if the cowl gracefully concealed these sins. I have enough yarn leftover that I could un-pick the whole thing and try again, but I’m not sure I have it in me.

That said, this sweater is wonderfully warm and cozy—so much so that by the time I finished it I only got to wear it twice before it was too toasty for comfort. These photos were taken early in the morning in June, and it was a mad dash to snap as many as we could before my face melted off. It’s no secret that I hate summer and love autumn, and I’m already counting down to cooler weather.

P.S. I thought I’d try dressing like a crayon for this shoot. The look didn’t turn out half as chic as I’d imagined. Oh well.

 

A Trip to London, and Souvenir Knitting

Today is my 11th wedding anniversary. We aren’t able to travel anywhere or do any of things we’d normally choose to celebrate, like checking out a new coffee shop or visiting an old house, so I’ve been thinking back on our trip to London last year. It was our first overseas trip together, and one we’d been looking forward to taking for several years.

We stayed at The Blackbird in Earl’s Court, an ale-and-pie house and boutique hotel run by a 175-year-old pub company. The room was gorgeous and comfortable, the staff was wonderfully accommodating of our need to stash our luggage before check-in, and our stay included a full English breakfast each morning.

The view from our window

The Blackbird is also a short walk to the Earl’s Court tube station, and a longer but no less pleasant walk to Shaukat, famed home of affordable Liberty London prints. I treated myself to two three-meter cuts of Tana lawn in coordinating colorways to make matching button-up shirts for me and Justin. I’m waiting for cooler weather to embark on the process of fitting shirts before I cut into this precious meterage.

As enthusiastic museum-goers, we were spoilt for choice, but I ruled that the Victoria & Albert Museum and the British Museum were our must-sees for this visit. I’d had my heart set on seeing the Elgin Marbles since I’d first read Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” and I was not disappointed—in fact, I was not at all prepared for the scale of the stonework, despite knowing full well these carvings adorned the pediments and other high places of the Parthenon and were intended to be seen from dozens of feet away at minimum.

I acknowledge that my ability to witness and enjoy the (more aptly named) Parthenon Marbles with relative ease, in an English-speaking country with customs and cultural expectations not dissimilar from my own, is a privilege predicated on an unresolved, and to a certain degree unacknowledged, crime. I wholeheartedly believe the Marbles are the rightful legal, historical, and cultural property of Greece and its people, and that they should be returned to Greece to be reunited with the remaining marbles.

I admit that my discomfort about the British Museum’s continued possession of the Marbles was outweighed by my desire to experience art of exceptional significance, to stand where Keats once stood and to maybe feel what he felt looking at them. Seeing the Marbles has reinforced for me in a more tangible way that they ought to be returned, and I can at least say that we opted not to financially support the British Museum while we visited. Was I wrong? Perhaps. I can only say that I’m trying my best, and I hope one day to view the Marbles again when they’ve been restored to their rightful home.

Right, enough of that—on to less weighty things!

We splurged on two stage shows while we were there: Hamilton at the Victoria Palace Theatre…

…and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Shakespeare’s Globe.

Unfortunately I don’t have any photos from the latter show, and I can’t tell you how much I wish I did, because it was wild. The aesthetic was a mash-up of Mexican-inspired pinatas and early 90s neon streetwear. The cast was visibly diverse, the pop culture asides were hilarious, and my new favorite stage gag of all time is watching a man throw down an inflatable mattress as a form of protest, and then later looking on as a woman who feels spurned by him kicks open the pressure valve, causing him to sink to the floor as the mattress slowly, sadly deflates. Pure gold.

Other highlights for us included:

Taking in the view from the London Eye

Walking through Westminster Abbey (though we could only snap photos of the exterior) and pausing at the memorial stones of C.S. Lewis, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, the Brontë sisters, Lord Tennyson, and my beloved Romantic poets Keats, Byron, Coleridge, Shelley, Wordsworth, and Clare, among many others.

Touring the Tower of London and traversing Tower Bridge

Stopping outside St. Paul’s Cathedral to honor another of my favorite poets, John Donne

Spending several hours at Strawberry Hill House, home of Horace Walpole, the father of Gothic literature and arguably the first person to use Gothic architectural elements in a private dwelling (in a manner later dubbed neo-Gothic)

I could probably devote another entire post to the all of the excellent food we ate during our five-day trip, but I’ve indulged in enough non-craft content already. Instead, let’s chat about a little hobby tourism!

In addition to Shaukat, we visited Liberty London, which I was surprised and delighted to find is also a Rowan Yarns flagship store. I ended up passing on both fabric yardage and yarn there, but did pick up a fine cotton floral bandana/handkerchief.

But for a proper fabric and yarn crawl—planned using these handy maps from The Fold Line—we headed out to Islington. We slipped into Sew Over It shortly before they closed, securing a couple of their house patterns, a peachy dotted chiffon for a future blouse, a mug, and some chocolate bars. Then we went to Ray Stitch, where I dithered over fabric, talked myself out of buying more patterns, and settled on a tiny cache of buttons and enamel pins.

Our last stop was Loop, and we were warned when we came in the door that they were also closing soon. I had just enough time to do a lap of their first and second floors before the lovely, long-suffering shop folk put the screws to me to make a decision. I hadn’t come with a particular plan in mind, but I was determined to leave with something of uniquely U.K. provenance.

After scanning a few labels and hefting a few yarns, I chose this teal-y blue Hayton 4ply from Eden Cottage Yarns. It’s a merino cashmere nylon blend with a semi-solid appearance, slightly fuzzy halo, and next-to-skin softness.

It turned out to be an excellent match for the Luna Viridis pattern from Hilary Smith Callis. I’d previously purchased the pattern to use up a skein of Cascade Heritage Silk reclaimed from a failed scarf, but the smooth, solid-colored yarn didn’t wow me. The Hayton, however, is just right.

If I needed further proof that it was a perfect match, the pattern is named for the moon, and the yarn’s colorway is “Tide.”

I made one deliberate change to the pattern, lengthening it to use all but a few yards of the yarn, and one accidental change, which was to misread which motif was supposed to be used as a spacer between larger pattern sections. If you’re curious, you can read more about that in my notes on Ravelry.

After my experience knitting Magical Realism, I was dubious of another in-the-round circular shawl construction. But this one begins like a triangular shawl before being joined in the round, and I found it a pleasure to knit. In fact, I think I might like to make more like this one, since I enjoy one-skein projects but don’t love having to fuss with loose ends that come free. (In my experience, not all bandana-style scarves come unwrapped, but if they come undone once, they’ll keep coming undone every 15 minutes for the rest of the day.)

Indulging in hobby tourism is one of the things I love about traveling with Justin, although I’m ashamed to admit I have souvenir skeins from earlier trips that are languishing in my stash, waiting for the right project. I suppose if I can’t visit any new yarn stores, I might just have to “revisit” yarn stores of days past via those patient skeins.

This Post Is Not About A Hat

In January, Justin and I booked a beach house with several other couples to celebrate a dear friend’s birthday and the start of a new year. It was the first time we’d taken a vacation with anyone besides each other or our families, and it was quite unlike any trip we’d taken before. Rather than scheduling out the five-day weekend, the guest of honor outlined a few activities that were important to him, and then left the rest of the time open for us to do as we pleased.

As a rather creative bunch with a tendency toward introversion, it was the perfect opportunity to read, draw, and knit, surrounded by kindred spirits, but without an obligation to be social, to be on the entire time. If you wanted to reflect and set intentions for the upcoming year, you took your journal out on one of the balconies to write in peace. If you opened up a laptop to watch a comedy special, you might be joined by others who were interested, but you didn’t worry if someone had wandered out for a walk, or was still sleeping in. We cooked for each other, we cleaned up together, we drifted in and out of each other’s orbits as our individual energy levels—our needs for various sorts of companionship—waxed and waned.

It put me in mind of the artists of the past who would spend a month at the seaside, or holed up in a little cottage in woods, puttering away at their art and taking walks and having time every afternoon to read and drink tea. When I’m feeling discouraged about my job or have a project I can’t find the time to get properly stuck into, I envy the freedom they had to structure their lives around making and doing things, to simply pack up and go somewhere else to live their lives for a while.

For my part, I brought more to do than I could have possibly accomplished if I’d spent five days alone doing nothing but my own hand-picked activities. I packed several skeins of yarn and all of my circular needles in case inspiration struck, but as it happened there was only one project I really wanted to work on: this hat.

The pattern is Tin Can Knits’ Apple Pie, and the yarn is more Malabrigo Rios in Natural, because I enjoyed using it on my mom’s hat so much that I wanted some for myself. Whereas the original hat pattern conjures the image of a pie fresh from the oven, mine is reminiscent of nothing so much as unbaked pie crust.

Knitting this hat might possibly be the first time I’ve twisted my cast-on while setting up knitting in the round. Usually the long-tail method makes it easy to avoid that particular foible, but I suppose I wasn’t giving it as much attention as I could while enjoying the opportunity to sit by the ocean in 70-degree weather in January. After not one but two false starts, I was able to complete the doubled brim portion, which is wonderfully squishy and warm and which will no doubt become a feature of future knit hats for me, before we returned home.

Looking back on that time now, I’m struck by how the less-than-idyllic moments of the trip have not been eclipsed by the current situation of a global pandemic, as one might assume, but instead seem to have foreshadowed it in peculiar ways. For instance, there were moments when we all came together to do something fun that had the effect of being intensely alienating for me. Ostensibly we were creating new memories together, but there were all these existing relationships and shared histories and in-jokes too, and though in theory I was being given access to them through this new experience, since I hadn’t been there from the beginning, I could only sort of understand the depth of the humor and revelry, and I felt I couldn’t fully participate.

These same friends and I are now experiencing a common struggle to find ways to create and socialize while limiting our physical contact. This shared experience, which by rights ought to cause us to cleave closer together, has instead left us all adrift in our own personal bubbles of loneliness and quietude. We keep reaching out, trying to connect and relate in meaningful ways, and yet can’t. It should be easier when we’ve all been served up a portion from the same plate of misery, and yet isn’t.

One of my secret desires during the trip was to have one-on-one time with a few of my friends in an effort to get to understand them on a deeper level. As a group we had several thoughtful, provocative, and at times vulnerable conversations, but I never quite found my opening for those more intimate interactions. There were only a few opportunities, but when they did present themselves, I could never quite step off the ledge. Would I ask something too personal? Would I unwittingly offend? Could we have the deeply personal conversations I craved, or would it just be awkward?

I never did find out, and I don’t know if I will. Between January and the start of lockdown in March, we spent more time together, embarked on an ever-widening array of adventures, but never quite gotten close to that place again. Even when we’ve had one-on-one time, there’s this reticence to be completely open. And the pandemic has made it worse. No one wants to admit how sad, or angry, or demoralized they are, because what would be the point? There’s not much any of us can do beyond what we’re already doing. It would just be empty complaining, right? So I don’t really know how my friend who is a nurse is coping, and whenever I ask how my friend who is (was) single is feeling, they always brush off their own negative feelings by saying they’re trying to keep an optimistic outlook and focus on solo pursuits.

I’m reminded of a passage in Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Dispossessed. The protagonist, Shevek, is leaving a regional academic institute to study at a larger, more central one, and his friends throw him a going away party. As the night wears on, only a few people stay up, and they start talking about big ideas, about science and philosophy and “…whether their childhoods had been happy. They talked about what happiness was.” Shevek asserts that suffering is a misunderstanding. That it exists, that it is real, and that we all recognize it when we experience it, but that we misunderstand its purpose. His friends think that pain is merely a warning against physical danger and harm, but serves no psychological or social purpose; Shevek disagrees.

He recounts a time when he witnessed a man who survived an explosion but was horribly burned, burned so badly that he died of his injuries a few hours later. Shevek describes sitting with the man, wanting to provide comfort but having nothing to give—no anesthetic, no doctor, not even touch, which causes the man terrible pain.

“There was no aid to give. Maybe he knew we were there, I don’t know. It didn’t do him any good. You couldn’t do anything for him. Then I saw…you see…I saw that you can’t do anything for anybody. We can’t save each other. Or ourselves.”

“What have you left, then? Isolation and despair! You’re denying brotherhood, Shevek!” the tall girl cried.

“No—no, I’m not. I’m trying to say what I think brotherhood really is. It begins—it begins in shared pain.”

Shevek wonders whether pain is not a thing to fear, but a thing that cannot be entirely avoided, and therefore a thing to get through, to go beyond. He clings to the idea that brotherhood does not exist to alleviate suffering—it can’t—but instead arises out of it.

I think about this passage a lot, particularly when I’m feeling isolated and lonely, when things are especially rough and I worry that I’m not giving my friends what they need or getting what I need in return. We’re all doing our best. Sometimes our best isn’t good enough. But that’s okay. It isn’t the end; it’s the beginning.