I just got a book "101 Easy Tunisian Stitches."  I sure would hate to see the hard stitches. The first one I tried was an interlocking shell stitch in two colors. It's the one on the cover on the right in purple and pink. The first problem is that each row's instructions are one sentence with commas and semi colons. Really, they should be using periods here and there. The second problem, is there appears to be commas missing, for example, "... , skip next ch on last row behind st just made, pull up lp in ch before next shell, ..." My husband asked me what was going on when he found me tangled in my two skeins of yarn muttering over and over, "skip next ch on last row behind st just made" putting the emphasis on different words each time to see if I could figure out exactly what was meant.

I totally should have taken pictures of the work-in-progress, because the first version of the shells was hilarious. I'm not in the hang of craft blogging yet, so you don't get any pix of drunk spider's webs today. The second try was much better and actually looked like the picture of the stitch, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I am still not doing it exactly like the instructions intend because I never did anything with a stitch on the last row behind a stitch I just made.

With most things, not just crafts, I do things wrong the first time. I actually expect to do things wrong the first time. I call them prototypes. Sometimes by doing it wrong I discover a better or different way to do the 'thing.' Sometimes I should wait until I figure out what the instructions mean (my husband's desk has a couple of extra drill holes in the keyboard tray, "Does this look upside down?"). But it seems like I learn better when I do something wrong the first time and then come back and try it again.

I didn't think I was going to get introspective tonight, but I should learn something from that. When I try a new crochet stitch and get it all wrong and then try it again (and again and again and again) there are no feelings of insecurity or failure or embarrassment. It's almost a joy to have done it wrong the first time and then eventually figure it out. It wouldn't be half as fun to always do things right the first time.

I should remember that when I do other things in life -  everything else in life.