Well, I decided to start this crochet cowl (Scorpio Cowl by Crochet the Highway) because I wanted a relaxed project (which is what crochet is to me) … that is not what happened.
I honestly have never frogged a project more in my life! First, the cowl size as written is massively small, 22”, which barely fits over my tiny 23” head when stretched, let alone over my glasses. Hence I went to increase the starting chain as per instructions, BUT the instructions don’t have any information about how much larger the increase instructions make it or how many stitches are then in the next row (increase instructions add an extra 2” width, formula for next row stitch count is *Foundation rows DC st ct = [2 (starting ch ct – 3) / 2 ] + 2*).
Several experiments later, I had the width needed to fit over my head with correct number of stitches. But I STILL had to frog multiple times because after a few rounds of the pattern, the instructions just failed to work. No matter how many times I frogged, checked the instructions, and re-did helped with an error apparently being on every line of the pattern. So I edited the pattern so the instructions worked, which took 12 straight hours (because I hyperfixated).
At this point I decided to contact the pattern designer … and had the most horrible exchange possible as despite providing great detail about the issues encountered the designer from the outset told me constantly to “just follow the instructions as written” and the reason I was having issues was because I had made edits to the instructions. This was so infuriating because before editing I literally was following the instructions as written and it was only when I, irate at this point, did as instructed and sent a photo to show that following the instructions blatantly didn’t work, did I find out what the error actually was – the written instructions DO NOT specifiy that the second colour has to be joined with directionality, that is only specified/shown in a photo several pages later, a photo that isn’t even referred to in the written instructions! Call me old fashioned, but written pattern instructions need to contain all the same information provided by photos.
I did suggest to the designer that they needed to include the formula I provided them with the pattern instructions for enlarging, and fix the ommission in the main pattern instructions since this causes cascading errors if you join the contrast colour with the wrong directionality. Sadly, the designer doesn’t believe either of these things is necessary.
The cowl is properly under way now, but I am still sour at the 2 weeks I spent after work battling with this pattern, and for the time I spent not crocheting after that because these issues made me hate crocheting.