Seriously, don’t.
Don’t distract her with your chatter while she is counting stitches or following a lace chart. Don’t expect to get your meals on time if she has just a few more rows to go. Don’t ask her to drive when you are perfectly capable and wouldn’t use your passenger time productively anyway.
But these trivial, personal, anti-knitting obstructions aside, don’t screw a knitter around by writing a pattern so full of mistakes that she virtually has to re-engineer it herself from the picture. Don’t sell her some yarn, and a pattern to make with the yarn, and underestimate the yarn requirement by ONE THIRD!
And, for heaven’s sake, DON’T DO BOTH OF THESE THINGS TO THE SAME KNITTER ON THE SAME PATTERN!! Grrr…
I am unable to finish the beret I have been making for my mother’s Christmas present. The pattern requires significantly more yarn than specified in the pattern, and the dyer does not have any more of that colour left. They have offered me a refund, which is decent of them but, as you can probably tell, I am a little frustrated by this. So much for my minimal Christmas knitting…

Sounds like you’re in a place where the only improvements to be made are hellfire and brimstone. But you’re almost done! YAY!
Not far to go now …. How much yarn are you short? It will be worth it as I am sure its recipeient will love it!
Uh oh – someone’s in trouble… and with just cause too.
Oh dear, how disappointing for you! Hope you can find some more xx
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! How annoying.
And I’m with you on the driving thing – I can’t understand why my husband asks me to drive when he knows perfectly well that is valuable knitting time!
How horrible!!! complettly unfair and dissappointing- refund? ha that won’t do it- since you spent time and love on it already- and doesnt your mother know you doing it? can you not improvise with some other colour? is there no more grey? argh! i am so feeling for you- but i am sure you will find a solution and am looking forward to seeing it .
and yep those husbands must know there boundaries – 😉
lol
urgh!! that is no good at all!
that is stunningly bad news–much worse than the average visit to the frog pond. shame on her!
Good God. Talk about doomed. And it looked SO good.
Oh No! Can you keep the pattern going, and stretch the yarn just a little further?
I’m very with you on the car knitting too! I will often have a project started specifically for car knitting, that can be knit in the dark if necessary.
oh no! how very annoying:(
Oh my goodness Anna! As if the crappy pattern wasn’t bad enough. It was looking beautiful too. What was the weight in those skeins? They did seem a bit stingy didn’t they. Hope you manage to think of another project for the yarn.
btw…just posted my random facts about me!
Oh that is just awful, and frustrating. All that work just to frog! I feel terrible for you.
That has to be so annoying. Do you think you can improvise and maybe do some sort of pattern on the top, maybe use the other color to finish it off? Would that look ok? That beret is too beautiful to frog. It seems like there would be some sort of a way to salvage it. Good luck.
Thats bad. It looks so nice too.
Yep. That’s horrible. And I am not surprised at this point.
How ’bout this. A pattern designer cold PMed me and asked if I would like to test knit her latest pattern. Well YEAH. I’ve done a few of her patterns from a book.
She said to ask her any questions, that’s what test knitting is for.
I asked ONE question! ONE! And she summarily dropped me. Said she was sending the pattern out to the editor and that “we’re all set”. I asked if she was going to send me any corrections, since I am out the cash I paid on this yarn. NO RESPONSE. No longer talking to me. Remember, I was cold PMed with this, I did not ask to test knit. Nor did I barrage with questions, and obviously I know how to knit garments.
I have found 3 errata so far. Hope she found them before sending it to the printer.
It’s infuriating, because when both these types of things happen, not only are we out of time spent, we are out of yarn money. And we all know this is not a cheap hobby.
Your beret is absolutely gorgeous. SO CLOSE! It’s a wonder you haven’t pulled out all your hair.
Gah! Not fair! It is really pretty, though… I’m loving salmony-orange yarn lately.
That is so unprofessional.
How frustrating!
That is so unfortunate, the beret was looking just gorgeous!
I giggled at the “don’t ask me to drive” rule. It’s a good rule.
I’m sorry you had to work around the errors only to run out of yarn. Can you locate any grey yarn and finish the topp off that way? Did you check Ravelry to see if anybody else has that yarn? I hate frogging myself and would virtually do anything to keep from it. Good Luck!
Damn the people who screw with knitters! Damn them! Haha. Seriously, though, that’s horribly annoying. The same thing happened to me when I was making a hat for my daughter, only the yarn was discontinued!! The people from the yarn store sold me 2 skeins and when I went to get more they told me the yarn had been discontinued 6 years ago and they were just selling what they had left, which, of course, they never told me when I bought the yarn in the first place.
So, as you can see, i feel your pain.
Oh that’s baaad! I’d be so pissed! They should offer you a gift card too towards your next purchase.
One time, when I was a beginner knitter I had a yarn shop worker give me double the yarn I needed for a sweater! It’s was so much more $$$ then I needed to spend – still have some of the awful blue/green cotton too – and to make matters worse, I never finished the sweater!
I am sorry the pattern has been so frustrating! It is coming out beautifully, though!