Knitting Maverick?

Is it just me or does everyone ditch the pattern half-way through? I have been working on my little sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts this week. I was diligently following the pattern though the main body and sleeves but then it came to attaching the sleeves and decreasing for the shoulders and well, what can I say? I hate the way patterns are written. In my perfect world I think knitting patterns would be completely written in a combination of plain English and pictograms.

I am a fan of the conversational pattern that doesn’t force you to follow hard rules but rather makes suggestions like Elizabeth Zimmerman or the Wonderful Wallaby pattern (only my favorite pattern of all time!). So I changed the pattern. I love the sweater but hated the way she had me add additional stitches for the placket. So I picked them up behind the front of what will be the placket, much cleaner and cuter.

It is funny how I have absolutely no problem winging sweater patterns all willy-nilly but when it comes to crochet I am absolutely stymied. And when it comes to putting a real binding on a quilt instead of just rolling over the edge I am down right cagy and have to wait for the calming crafting presents of Amber and Ben before I even think of beginning.