More "Do I really know how to read a pattern"

This is actually an old piece. I post this as a note of hope & despair for new tatters. I've been tatting for 19 years. I still make mistakes. So, newcomers 'don't despair, everyone makes mistakes.' And newcomers 'despair, no matter how long you've been doing this, you'll still make bonehead mistakes.'

I started this while in class with Jane Eborall. It went great. I went home & continued working on it. I got to ring 30 & noticed that something was wrong. So I checked. Re-checked & finally traced the problem to a mistake that I had made. On ring #11. *sigh* So I clipped it off & started over. And over. And over. After my, literally, sixth attempt, that never got farther than the wheel, I gave up. I decided that I had a mental hiccup and now (ie mid-September) was a bad time to work on the wheelbarrow. I did the small scallop heart from Martha Ess's Tat's Amore and broke the hiccup.

Of course, it was after this that it took me two tries to get Jane's bookmark right. But hey, I'm only human & I was distracted.