Help with pattern please!

[MaggiefromUK]

Hi all

 

Lovely to find this community!

 

Sorry to start off with a request for help, but I've bought a pattern which I just don't understand at all. I'm reasonably new to chrochet but know the basics, but this pattern has stumped me completely.

 

It's for an Amigurumi Panda and starts like this:

 

Base: 24ch + 1ch

Round 1: 1 sc in each of the next 13ch, 3ch in next 1ch, 1sc in each of next 12ch, 2 sc in next ch (30 stitches)

BUT I only have 15 ch on my hook! Please help before I blow a gasket

 

Thank you in advance

 

Maggie

[magiccrochetfan]

Hi, welcome to the ville

 

Well I was gonna say this is pretty straightforward, with a few things not explicitly stated, but now that I've read it more closely, i think there might be a problem...

 

So let me walk thru it......First you make a chain of 24+1 chains, so chain 25.  (it doesn't say so, but the +1 chain is for a turning chain to start the sc row.)  Ok so next you work back into the chain you made, and you would skip one chain, remember that is your turning chain.  So skip a chain, then do an sc into each of the next 13 chains.  Now, it says to chain 3 in the next chain, but we know you can't make a chain into another stitch, that is not how chains work.  What it should say is to make 3 sc into the next chain, so do that.  You have now sttiched into 14 of the original 24 chains that you made, so you have 10 chains left to work into.  We can see there is a problem because it now gives directions for working into 13 more chains.  

 

 

so, not sure I've helped much!  Are you certain that you typed exactly what the pattern says?  If so, this is a bad pattern.  

[MaggiefromUK]

Ooops sorry I meant start with 14ch + 1ch.

[magiccrochetfan]

Ah, OK!  that is different, then lol

what you are doing is crocheting around the chain....along one side, then at the end you put 3 sc in one stitch to turn the corner, then down the other side of the chain, then 2 sc in the first chain.  you are making a long skinny oval.  

[magiccrochetfan]

couple of illustrations of starting an oval this way http://crochet-mania-tips.blogspot.com/2009/05/tips-for-making-crochet-oval.html (shows double not single, but the idea is the same)

http://www.crochetspot.com/how-to-crochet-on-opposite-side-of-chain/

[MaggiefromUK]

Oh thank you so much! I will try that

[magiccrochetfan]

The pattern really should have made it clear what you are doing.  Some pattern-writers take shortcuts and leave out this kind of info, but do be sure you have read everything at the beginning and end of the pattern , any explanatory text or illustrations.  For patterns in books, there is often lots of info in the book, apart from the pattern itself, that helps understand the pattern. 

[MaggiefromUK]

Oh wow, thank you so much for the links. Now it really does make sense. As I mentioned the pattern is for the head of a panda which is oval. Fab, when I've finished I'll post a picture.