Things stupidity has taught me

I get these electronic newsletters from Lion Brand Yarn, which are sort of depressing because most of the projects they are shilling are stupid and ugly, but they also have a section where readers share tips. Some of these are pretty depressing too (take your knitting everywhere, and people will talk to you about it!), but some are useful.

In that spirit, two things I've learned, the hard way, about knitting:

1) When the pattern tells you to change needle sizes, make sure you change BOTH needles. I know, you do one at a time, but if they are both bamboo needles (same color) and similar in size, you can, like me, forget to swap out the second one and knit merrily along for a good 16 rows with one needle of each size. Oops.

2) When the pattern tells you to increase (or decrease) once each side every third row four times, and once each side every seventh row five times, they mean to do the four sets of three rows FIRST, and THEN the five sets of seven rows. They DON'T mean you should work increases in the third and seventh row, simultaneously. I can't believe I didn't figure that out the first time through. I felt like Nigel Tufnel puzzling over chord charts. Still, you'd think they could add the word "then" in the pattern, couldn't they?