I would so love to say this is going to be an old-school Brittney appreciation post, but sadly, I cannot.

This post is all about starting my blanket project! Twice. And with multiple almost restarts. So I started my blanket and got the first row of chains down (72 altogether). I then found out my cheat sheet for a half double crochet stitch was very, very wrong and I had to scoot over to a different YouTube video to look it up (it was particularly helpful as the stitch I was actually looking for was a double half crochet cross stitch, so this video fed two birds with one scone).

Needless to say, it still took me a while to get the hang of the stitch. Anywho, for the pattern I am following, you should end with 2 less chains than the original length – so 70 in my case. On the first try, I got 70! Holy, was honestly not expecting it to work on the first go. Second row…69…oops. I ripped it back and tried again. 69 chains…I texted my sister because I remembered her saying she had an issue with hers too but did something weird and it ended up giving her blanket a nice scalloped edge. Unfortunately, she finished hers before Christmas and was a bit foggy on what she had actually done. I thanked her and figured I’d just give it another row and hopefully it would work itself out. It did not. I had 68 chains. Ugh.

Naturally, I ripped it back to the first row of 70 and thought “I can do this” (my husband may beg to differ after hearing me speaking in a rather frustrated and loud tone – read: practically yelling – at the video I was watching because I couldn’t figure it out). In any case, I was not going to quit so easily! I’m just a tad stubborn. I crocheted my second row…69 again…shoot. I ripped back and tried again. Keep in mind, this was after about 3 hours of trying to get it to work because it’s new and I’m really slow. Did I get it this time?!

No. No, I did not. At this point I was tired, frustrated, and ready for some tea. I ripped up the entire 3 rows that were wrong AGAIN, and packed it in for the night. I decided starting fresh the next day was probably the best idea so that I didn’t give up completely and change my free inquiry idea. It is absolutely useless for me to keep at something that isn’t working after hours of trying as I just get frustrated and make more mistakes. Sometimes stepping back and taking a breather is just what I need to get it going again. Wish me luck!