Winging It

There is a Crochet Procedure that frequently appears in patterns. You start with a round (or an oval) of, like, 12 stitches. Then you increase it by six by crocheting one and then increasing in the next stitch, which consists of crocheting two stitches into the next stitch. 

That pattern (crochet one, increase one, giving you three stitches in the current round where there were two stitches in the previous round) is so common that when I saw it in the raven pattern, I barely read it, and just commenced with the increases. 

The next round consisted of crocheting two and then doing the increase. And the following round was crocheting three and then increasing. Easy. I've done this many, many times before.

So, why could I not get the stupid thing to work this time? 

I mean, I counted carefully. I got twelve stitches in the first round. I did the increase, and somehow I was a stitch off. But I counted, and I had 18 stitches. Okay, then.

But five times I got to the round where I was supposed to have 30, and I was off. By, like, a lot. 

I have no explanation for this. I counted. I worked into each stitch. Of course, I'm working in black, so it's harder to see, but how did I mess it up that badly? 

On Saturday I attempted it again. In better lighting. And still... I ripped it out twice before finally getting to the round of 30 and actually having 30 stitches. Whew. 

(Just in case you were wondering what was blocking me from making progress. For three weeks. Yeah, the wings.) 

Luckily, wing two went much easier once I brute forced my way into getting wing one done. 

Seriously, I have no explanation for why this was so freaking hard. It shouldn't have been.

Deadline's fast approaching, and with the wings done, I could finally start on the main body. 

Alana, see that tail thing at the back (on the right side in the picture)? In round 13, that's where the chain went. And then in the following rounds, you just work over that chain, and it builds out, adding to the body. At least, that's what I think the pattern meant. 

Hopefully that was the last major glitch. I managed to do that whole increase thing on the body with no issues. Why I had trouble with the wings perplexes me.