A comment from a friend about patience prompts this.
My brother, years ago and well before he had his own family, told our mom he couldn’t see himself having six kids like she’d had; he just didn’t have the patience.
Mom stared at him and exclaimed, “Where do you think I GOT it!?”
I am here to tell you, he did just fine. (No, not six, but it was the whole future parent thing he was wondering about being good enough for. He’s a great dad.)
When you’re new at something, becoming really good at it can seem unreachable. Pick up a violin, figure out which hand holds the bow, go play in the orchestra? But even Elizabeth Zimmerman had to knit her first-ever stitch.
Come to think of it, I know a lot of musicians–people who know what it’s like to spend years getting really good at their craft–who are natural-born knitters. Reading musical notations is a brain exercise of translating from squiggles on a page to finger and hand movements.
Knitting patterns are simply a second language to the hands. Fluency comes with practice.