Testing - 52 things I made (3/52)

I'm a self taught crocheter. All the crocheting women in my life are right handed and I'm a lefty. Growing up I would have dearly loved to have learnt but it just didn't happen. In my early twenties I was at an art workshop and one of the left-handed ladies there showed me how to chain stitch and I was away!

That was before the days of You Tube videos and there was little in the way of modern, contemporary patterns too. I learnt new stitches by holding a mirror up to library books. I learnt how to read patterns and there was not stopping me (except when I had morning sickness! I thought I'd never pick up a hook again!).

It wasn't long into my crochet journey before I became frustrated, it when the start of online patterns and crochet magazines started to pop up in the local shops. I was faced with mistakes in patterns, at first I thought I might have been doing things wrong, misreading the pattern and try, try, try again I did. But it turns out the problem didn't lie with me, but the turn around speed and lack of pattern testing these publications seem to find acceptable. Each issue of one magazine often has errata from previous issues! Not great if you don't buy the next issue or if you've started the pattern before the next issue comes out!

This shawl is one example, even more frustrating is that there is mistakes in the errata too! I only bought the magazine for this one pattern too. I started it in the middle of last year and in total frustration I left it unfinished until last week. I couldn't decode the errata or my notes on how I thought I could crochet it to make it work like the pattern picture so I added just a little row of edging and blocked it. It's much smaller than the pattern intended and despite all the problems I am still pretty pleased with it.

I feel sorry for those beginner crafters and how they might feel that the mistakes lie with them!