I got this crochet Lochness Monster pattern from the Unicorns, Dragons, and Fantasy Amigurumi book. If you want the pattern directly, you can find it here: Ravelry: PatchworkMoose’s Nessie the Loch Ness Monster
Oh boy. I’ve been sort of both excited for and dreading writing this review.
Before starting the Lochness, I made the Pegasus and was 80% of the way through the Goblin (ran out of yarn; needed more). Both looked genuinely good.
I started with the head of the Lochness and made what I felt, personally, was a nice replacement eyepatch since I didn’t want to use safety eyes in case I ever gifted it to a child. I nailed the 5-bobble-stitch for the nose.
Made the body without issue. I was feeling pretty good. Gone were the days of being a beginner, I told myself. I was an intermediate now, baby.
Then I got to this line in the neck: “dec over the next st and the gap made by the stitch edge, dec over the next gap made by the stitch edge and the next st” – and I wasn’t experienced enough at the time to know what to do (though I understand it now).
There are a lot of patterns that are actually fairly forgiving of small mistakes here or there. This line was not.
I guess I should show some pictures now so you understand what I’m talking about.
Okay here goes.
Oh you’re still here. Sorry, I was busy waiting for the ground to swallow me whole, what were we talking about? Oh, right. The Lochness Monster and the time it drowned me. You can very clearly see the spot where the neck connects and the tail connects to the body and it’s not cute.
I showed it to my fiancée. He’s normally fairly encouraging of all my crochet endeavours. He thought my Woobles Narwhal was cute even though I screwed up all the limbs. He keeps my Woobles Dinosaur on his desk at home even though his eyes are asymmetrical. He hung my Woobles Chinese Lantern on our stairway even though my tassel was definitely incorrect. To be honest, I was not sure if his encouragement was sincere in a “it’s actually cute” way or in a “I love you, so it’s cute!” way. I wondered if his loving approval had limits.
This was the limit.
It was also clear to me that I really did not want to frog and redo this one. It was so much work to get to this point, and to be honest a lot of it wasn’t that interesting to do for me at this point — I had gotten bored of mostly doing just single crochet, increase, and decrease. I couldn’t bear to redo it all again, and I wasn’t confident I’d figure out what that line was asking for me the second time around either. So I put it aside in a sad box in the corner of my room.
I don’t think I’m ever going to bother going back, because there are just many more patterns that interest me. But I share it with you to show you an example of an early attempt when I was learning where I just failed. Failure is okay.
I give you….pattern vs reality 9:
Difficulty: Intermediate. This is rated as a skill level of 3 stars in the book. In comparison, the Pegasus is two stars and the goblin is one star (the more stars, the harder it is).
Equipment Needed: 2mm and 2.5mm hook.
Stitches Used: Single Crochet, Increase, Half Double Crochet, Double Crochet, Slip Stitch, Chaining, Back Loop Only Single Crochet, 5-DC-Bobble, Picot
Time Taken: I’m not sure; a lot.
Tips & Tricks: Do not guess so easily.
