Mama Kat Thursday: Something I Wasted Time On

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The title is the Mama Kat topic I chose today, "Share something you don't realize you're wasting time on until you've spent an hour doing it."

The last time I spent a lot of time trying to accomplishing something that proved a waste of time was a crochet project.

 I was trying a new pattern. 
I have a simple afghan booklet with 3  afghan patterns. I've only made one of the three and I know the pattern works well, but I had some yarn I'd just bought on sale and wanted to try one of the others.
I decided on the "Ripple Afghan," pattern which has a up-down zig-zag design involving just two alternating rows of crochet stitch. The first row was a straight row of tripe-crochet stitches. The second row of triple crochet with a decrease stitch worked into that would from the hump of every zig-zag. The two rows were to be repeated over and over until the proper size was reached. i
I'd done 8 rows when I realized my ripple afghan was getting narrower and narrower with every row. 
That's not how it's supposed to work.

So, I pulled it all back out down to the base row to try again and see if I'd missed something. A few rows later, the same thing was happening. So I pulled it out again down to the second row with the decreases, since this was where problem started. Each decrease skips two stitches as it tighten things into that hump shape to make the zig-zag ripple. This means, when you top it with the next row, it's got few stitches to work your triples in. I decided the booklet directions had missed compensating for this, so the rows would work the same length, so each ripple would line up evenly, one above the other. 
I put it aside till the next evening, then tried again, trying to jury-rig it with extra stitches to compensate for those lost in the decreases, but to no avail.
Despite several tries, I couldn't fix it.

 At that point, I decided the directions were faulty, marked it so on the booklet, then pulled all the stitching out so I had a pile of yarn beside me on the sofa and started over, using the other pattern I knew worked perfectly fine.
Sometimes even store-bought crochet books have mistakes in the directions.

Thanks for Visiting!

Comments

John Holton said…
Mary had all kinds of trouble with a crocheted hat pattern she was trying yesterday. She spent half her time tearing everything out and trying again. Finally she just used another pattern and all went well. She finds errors in about 10% of the patterns she tries, both knitting and crocheting.

You might try the publisher's website (if they have one; by now most of them do) to see if there's a corrected pattern. If not, try emailing them; they might have a corrected pattern, or they can contact the designer and get one. Good luck!
Feb 20, 2020, 2:46:00 PM
KatBouska said…
What you just described is exactly what happens EVERY time I try to crochet something. And I can't read the patterns. And I once spend a lot of time accidentally embroidering a pillowcase to my sweatpants as I held it in my lap. I do not think I was cut out for this kind of work. LOL
Feb 26, 2020, 12:38:00 AM

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