Another Problematic Pattern

 

I don’t know what it was about mystery patterns and the end of year, but I started a mystery knit along of a shawl in November and it also had mistakes. But this seemed more egregious because it was a paid for pattern from a well known designer. And once again there were people “shouting” down anyone who dared say anything that could be construed as not entirely positive and full of love. And when I say shouting someone did type in all caps!

This mystery knit along was billed as a simple crescent shaped shawl with clues spread out over four weeks and the cost being slightly lower than the price on final release when the mystery has been revealed. Although I am not a fan of paying for a mystery pattern, I do appreciate the work that goes into a pattern and will pay a small amount for a mystery.

There were mistakes in the first clue with stitch counts not being correct. And then people were complaining that there wasn’t a chart for the lace pattern so charts were added in the next clues but it was obvious that the charts hadn’t been checked. Initially the legend for SSK and K2TOG were transposed – a major error in a pattern. Also the transition rows between the lace and garter stitch were transposed between the written instructions and charted instructions. It was pretty obvious that this pattern had not been test knitted or tech edited. Now this is a very well known designer who could have had her pick of people to test knit and I do not know why she didn’t. Maybe she thought this pattern was so easy that it didn’t need testing. Yet she was willing to take our money for this.

The other complaint people had about this pattern was that it wasn’t really a mystery. It was a lace pattern interspersed with rows of garter stitch. The only difference in each clue was the number of rows of each that were knit. Although this was disappointing, it meant I did have an easy project on the needles and in the end I have a project that I think suits the yarn well. Although I will not knit another shawl pattern by this designer. Her crescent shaped shawls come out as a weird shape that require significant blocking to fix.

What I find the most surprising of this pattern is the designer’s own project. Once the mystery was over, she released the full pattern and posted pictures of her own shawl on the pattern page. But her project does not match the pattern. In the pattern there are sections of stocking stitch at the ends of the shawl on the lace sections but in the project on the pattern page these sections are in garter stitch.