Having trouble following pattern

Hello,

I’m very new to knitting and this is my first attempt at reading and following a pattern. Up until now I’ve used youtube video tutorials. I’m following a pattern for fingerless gloves.

It would be easiest to discuss if you could also see the pattern, but I don’t want to share it on here since it is not mine to share. Can I email or text someone about it?

In case it can be answered here without looking at the pattern, here is my issue: it says to increase by 12 stitches to total 60 stitches, and then the next step is just knitting in the round with colorwork. The blocks for the colorwork design only go to 59 (unless I’m reading it wrong) and I’m left with an extra stitch that doesn’t fit the pattern.

Thank you

Sydnee

What is the name of your pattern and the designer or source?

If you think it will help you can post a scan of the first 2 rounds of the chart. Don’t post any more than that due to designer copyright please.

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Lucky Sunflower Mitts by Stoneknits

Please tell me if I’ve shared too much

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That’s perfect. Thank you for being considerate of the designer’s copyright.
Work sts 1-59, skip the greyed out sts for now and then it looks like the next stitch is 77. That would be your total of 60sts.
What cheerful mitts!

Oooooh!! It makes sense. Yay! Thank you.

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They are really sunny gloves!
Good luck with the chart, never used one myself, it looks tricky. Hope it works out well for you.

There are SO many posts (on this incredibly helpful and useful forum) to do with trying to understand patterns. Can anyone explain to me why they have to be so impossibly cryptic? When you buy or download a free pattern, or look in a book, the pattern (wherever you find it) is a pattern about knitting. It’s not about cooking, or driving, or bringing up children, or pottery, or any other subject whatsoever. It’s about knitting. Why does it matter if it takes a bit longer, or uses up another page, or talks baby-talk to the already initiated? The experienced can always skip something; the inexperienced can’t invent something that isn’t there. Why are so many assumptions made? Where is the empathy for the poor person who needs a helping hand? What else has the pattern writer got to do that is more important than bothering to put themselves in the shoes of a knitter -even sometimes an experienced knitter - and finding a way to be clear instead of opaque? I’m driven nearly insane by having to go over and over something to understand it. We are not stupid people! We are not trying to do neurosurgery here, just understand instructions. I get it that abbreviating complicated instructions is important, and that endless repetition is equally confusing, but still there is room for just imagining what it is like to be reading this and trying to get to grips with it, just having the kindness to realise that an extra sentence might make the whole experience a happy one instead of a nightmare!!

It’s frustrating, I know. I’ve sometimes had to turn patterns upside down, sideways or give dramatic readings in an effort to understand. Designers and test knitters are trying to be as careful as possible but the written word can be ambiguous and confusing.
Keep trying. Sometimes just putting the pattern down for a day and coming back with a fresh mind helps. The more patterns you work, the better (not easy but at least somewhat clearer).
You can always find commiseration here and often, help over the problem parts.

The point was that we shouldn’t have to try so hard!!! We should be being helped!!! I know we can always get help here, thank goodness, but pattern-writers should make more of an effort to be clear. And kind. And thoughtful. Some are, of course, but many are not anywhere near being able to imagine what it’s like not to understand something. And not just in knitting, of course, but instructions generally can almost always be relied on to leave out some crucial bit of information. Like British road signs (I’m from the UK so feel able to say this!!), where they’ll tell you which exit to take for the first, second and third roundabouts and then just stop. Which way??!! How am I supposed to KNOW??!!!