Epic Fail

I'm a beginning crocheter.  I knitted many moons ago and could be considered a very, very, beginning knitter.  However, this is about my beginning crocheting.

When I was learning, relearning (because I'm pretty sure that my Mom TRIED to teach me), trying it out last fall, I didn't want to start with potholders or anything normal.  Nope, 2nd thing I made is a 17-skein afghan crocheting 3 strands at once.  That sucker is heavy and my husband loves it.  I've also made a blanket for K.  I have the yarn to do the blankets for Fixit and Bug.

However, none of these items has required the use of a pattern.  They are "supposed to be" rectangular.  They have turned out roughly rectangular.  They are warm and no one complains.

Then, this fall, my sister-in-law has a baby and since we're broke um, since I wanted to give her something handmade... I was going to do my first foray into "gasp" trying to read a pattern.  Honestly, I'm a smart lady. I have a college degree and graduated with honors. I'm a substitute teacher.  I can teach math to 3rd graders.

Here is one of my guilty secrets: I CANNOT count when I crochet.  If you cannot count, you cannot follow a pattern.

So, for me to attempt a baby blanket that wasn't just straight crocheting was a monumental task.  I did it!  I followed the pattern on the back of the yarn wrap and made the blanket.  The hardest part of the pattern was trying to make sure that I had 106 stitches in my chain row.  I must have counted that thing about 10 times and still was never quite sure that I had the right number.  However, the thing turned out and now my niece will have a homemade Christmas present.  Admittedly, it took me about a week to crochet the thing and I'm pretty sure that my mother would have been done in an afternoon, but she has been crocheting for years.

Anyway, on to my epic fail.

I figured if I could follow the pattern for the blanket, I was now able to move on to something a little more challenging, like slippers.  I have a leaflet of 9 "EASY" crochet slipper patterns.  Followed the directions (kind of forgot to check for gauge, but really? people do that!?) kind of.  You know that gauge thing, where it says 4 stiches = 1" and 4 rows = 1".  Yeah.  I didn't do that.

So, the end result is one, count 'em, one, slipper - because I'm not making another one.  I'm actually going to throw this one away.  The pattern I was following was the size to fit Bug, actually to be 1/2" too big for Bug.  Well, the slipper is too big for me.  My foot is 3 inches longer than Bug's.

sigh...

I'm going back to working on felt and when I feel like it, I'll try to follow a pattern again.  It's not going to happen for a while again.  I have to get brave enough to try and attempt it again.