Ignoring the Obvious

Let's just say you were knitting your first lace project. Let's say that you've knit hundreds of other things, that you know how to accomplish almost all stitches with little error, that you consider yourself, well, "experienced." That you've allowed yourself to teach others this fine art of knitting. Let's just assume all of those things are true.

So you're knitting your first lace. No biggie, right? Nothing different here? You know how to follow a chart. You've done this before.

So you've had to rip out the damned thing about a dozen times already. And all of those were, perhaps, your fault, and not the pattern writer's fault. So you cast on one more time--you tell yourself it's the last time--and you knit through the entire chart twice. You look at the little tangled mess you've made between every single row. You can't figure out why it doesn't look right. You keep knitting. And knitting.

You think, gosh, blocking must really make a difference.

And then, when you've finished THE SECOND REPEAT of the chart, you read the instructions in the box below the chart. They say "work each right side row from right to left; work each wrong side row from left to right." Easy enough. Simple enough. Common, even. Should have been obvious.

But it wasn't obvious to you. Oh no. You've worked all the rows right to left. So you say... well we can't repeat what you say here.

Let's say you do all those things. What does that make you? Does it make you a complete idiot? A loser? That word we couldn't repeat earlier?

Well, excuse me now. *Ahem.* I have to cast on some lace. Again.