Knit and crochet mistakes: you aren't alone.

Last week, I wrote about starting a crochet summer pattern for a beach cover up. It was going so smoothly and then…(you've all been there) I got stuck. I tried talking to the pattern: "what are you talking about?!" but it didn't answer back. I unraveled and started the section over then over again. After expressing my frustrations to my knitter friend, she tells me "keep frogging or move on to something else". She then explained to me what frogging means. In knitting and crocheting, a frog says "rip it rip it" referring to undoing rows of work due to errors. So I frogged some more but it still didn't look right. I felt like a failure. I consider myself an advanced crocheter, so why couldn't I make this work?
I turned to the pattern on Ravelry.com and realized I wasn't alone. There were other crocheters out there showing the same frustrations. Some got through it, some decided to iron out the errors on their own and some (including me) gave up and moved on to something else. It feels good to let go!
I found this similar pattern http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/summer-beach-cover-up and am moving along nicely with it. Lesson learned: if you get the pattern from Ravelry, look at the project notes from fellow fiber friends if they are available. There are great tips and wonderful pictures too.
Interested in learning more about this feature on Ravelry and how to take advantage of everything else it has to offer? Sign up for our Ravelry 101 class at Yarns By Design on February 23, 2016 from 5:30-7pm. http://yarnsbydesignpa.com/social/classes.html

New pattern + same yarn= happy crocheter!

Warmly, 

YBD