Yeah, well, FO to you, too, buddy!
Yesterday, as has become my wont on New Year's Day, I started a new crochet project, in this case, an adorable little round box. My friendly "stitches used" guide told me I would be needing to "sc [single crochet], dc [double crochet], and blo [back loop only]." I'm not going to bother with an explanation here; those of you who don't crochet don't care, and those of you who do crochet don't need the explanation (I will, however, point out in passing that "back loop only," by itself, isn't actually a stitch). As I read through the pattern before beginning (because Bad Things happen when I don't), I kept coming across an instruction to "FO."
I've been crocheting for a few years now, but because there isn't one universally agreed-on convention for crochet pattern abbreviations, I still run across stumpers - of which this was one. I handed leorathesane the page. "I think this pattern is telling me to fuck off."
Leora looked at the pattern and laughed. "Funny. It means 'front loop only.'"
Now it was my turn to laugh. "That is funny, because the stitch guide tells me to back loop only." Again, no big explanation here, but since y'all are smart people, I'm sure you can guess that "front loop only" and "back loop only" are exactly opposite things, which produce exactly opposite results.
I assumed the mistake was in the stitch guide. But after Leora looked at the pattern and the picture for a minute, she said, "No, the pattern is wrong. Every time it says front loop, you really want to back loop. Otherwise it's not going to look anything like the picture."
Well, day-um! It's a tremendously good thing I have her to run confusing patterns by! 'Cause I would've gone by the pattern, and it would've come out looking like dog doo, and I would've blamed myself, and been all depressed, and gotten my 2009 crafting off to an abysmal start. I mean, Greater Magellanic Cloud, Batman - doesn't anybody proofread these things before foisting them on an unsuspecting (and, I might remind them, pointy-hook-wielding) public?