Tension

I'm sure Pip of Meet Me at Mikes is a very nice person.  In fact, I know she is because she has spent an inordinate amount of time and gone to a lot of effort putting video tutorials on her blog to teach ninnies like me how to crochet.  I'm sure she has no idea how much grief she is causing as a result.  She has no idea. 

Here's the thing: I know my efforts are supposed to look something like this:

Believe me when I tell you that I have studied Pip's videos until my eyes hurt.  I have mastered the individual bits  - chain, trebble, slip (see, I even know the right words...).  But somehow this is what I have ended up with:

And this is not even my first attempt. Best not to tell you how many times I have ripped the whole thing up and started again.  Moving to a new colour felt like a major achievement until I realised that I'd make too many white bits on the inside rows.  And then I couldn't get the hang of the corners.

In short, in my over-enthusiasm, I have found holes to crochet into that aren't there, and made a circle where there should be corners.  And every now and again, just to add interest, I hook through and split the yarn of a stitch that slips so effortlessly over in Pip's video, so that I end up with a wispy leftover that I have to figure out what to do with. 

But (and right now it feels like a very small but) I think that the top right hand corner might be somewhere along the right lines.  So, I am going to try again on the basis that if I can do it once, even if by fluke, I am capable of doing it again.  I WILL learn how to do this. 

Futuregirl is right and I'm so very wrong.  You don't learn from videos or books; you learn from making mistakes.