Plan of Attack to Prevent Another Failed Project.

I spent about 6 hours on a hat was supposed to look like this. The time lost on other projects have been greater, sure... 

...but I'd never been so pumped about a homemade hat.

(photo credit 'Belinda' http://claresaddictedtoyarn.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/pattern-testers-needed.html)

...So, So Excited...

...For that chunky woolen Hat.

In hindsight, I probably deserved for that hat to fail. I convince myself that making the same stupid novice mistakes is actually the smart thing to do. 
When I'm feeling like a sassy know-it-all, I tend to do these things:

I laugh in the face of recommended yarn. I wanted a bulky hat. Screw your class 3 weight economy sized acrylic, I'm using bulky yarn.

I got 9 hooks in 6 different sizes but I'll be damned if you convince me to use them. My favorite red hook will always trump your "correct" hook.

^A typical bystander^
My rebel attitude about crocheting
intimidates people sometimes.

I don't practice stitches before I commit them to a project. I'd never crocheted a clamshell before, but no biggie. It's in my craftswoman blood. 

I never mastered my counting, and I LOVE to rely on 'eyeballing' it. (even though it's ruined many a project.) I can follow along to a tutorial, loop by loop and yarn over by yarn over, and it'll look totally stupid and not the same at all. 

I try to obey your patterns, I really do, but I want to finish at least one project during my lifetime, and between unraveling the product of your poor teaching job and rewinding your video so I can retry your goofy knots, I AM GROWING A GRANDMA FACE.

So, I did a lot wrong...

I hope a raccoon enjoys his sleeping bag.

I ran out of my good wool yarn, and saw nothing wrong with the size at that point. Most logical move according to me? "I'll trim the chunky wool with my least favorite color of  super thin yarn." YEAH. No.

The hat is so much bigger in person. 

It looked like a lampshade when I took this picture.

but before you judge it, you oughta know that the magic ring on the crown of this one is my personal best!

mergerc rangs!

Success Achieved on the Quest for the Purl!

♪♫ Guess who did a purllll             stitch?♬                               ♫♬Guess who did a purllll stitch?♪

                                                       ♪♫ I DID, I DID!♫♬

                                                    ♫♬Nanner, nanner boo-boo! ♪♫

After coms class I sat down with an open mind, Leisure Arts' Knit Stitches DVD my parents gifted me for my birthday, and my new pack of acrylic needles I gifted to myself. :] 

I began to lose patience around the fourth time I needed to recast, and I decided I kind of hate knitting. 

I made a mental list of the many reasons knitting sucks while I worked on my knit stitch row, and wouldn't you know it, just as I started the next row I was stricken with the power of the purl!

(I still think crocheting is way better than knitting though. 

It's just at this point, anything made by me that isn't

a knotty or oversized disaster is worth celebrating.)