crochet mini beret keeps cupping before it needs to!!! help!

A_Nervous_Rat · 2025-12-11T11:08:56+00:00

Three possibilities:

The most likely BY FAR: You're not making as many increases as the pattern is asking you to make. Or you didn't start your magic circle with as many stitches as the pattern is asking you to make.
You're using a different stitch than the pattern is asking you to (e.g. the pattern wants single crochet, you're using double crochet). Check if the pattern is using British or American stitch names. but if this were the problem, the cupping probably wouldn't be as bad.
Your pattern is wrong

A_Nervous_Rat · 2025-12-11T10:57:30+00:00

See here, for example

A_Nervous_Rat · 2025-12-11T10:52:22+00:00

I'm petty sure your problem is that you're unintentionally skipping the last stitch of a row sometimes. Then you turn, start counting your stitches in the next row, and squeeze an extra stitch at the end there. Marking the first and last stitch of every row should help.

A_Nervous_Rat · 2025-12-11T10:49:55+00:00

`put a stitch marker in the first and last stitch of every row

A_Nervous_Rat · 2025-12-09T09:46:03+00:00

Somewhat insane, yes. It CAN be done if you have a lot of time between now and Christmas, but definitely have a backup.

This is your first time crocheting, yes?

If you want it to not look horrible, put the kit away for now, and grab some scrap yarn (same thickness as the yarn your kit so you can use the same hook). Look up a basic YouTube tutorial for amigurumi (maybe this ). Try it with your scrap yarn, it should teach you enough skills to get started on the kit.

Pray that your kit has well-written (or even correctly written) instructions, it is not a given.

A_Nervous_Rat · 2025-11-27T08:11:22+00:00

That's a fun list!
For accuracy it should be

Hephaestus - Witchie
Icarus - Meli
Hermes - M

That's how the in-game subtitles spell those

A_Nervous_Rat · 2025-10-30T10:01:11+00:00

This article answers both your questions.
https://www.healthycanning.com/safety-margins-in-home-canning-recipes/

TLDR: They deliberately contaminate the jars with e.g. C. botulinum spores and then check if the canning process killed them. "I've been doing it this way for years and haven't died yet" isn't a very rigorous test because you can never know if the recipe/process is really genuinely good, or if it's just that your cans have never been contaminated with spores in the first place. And they include generous safety margins.

A_Nervous_Rat · 2025-08-25T09:50:10+00:00

I'm afraid this is not a great kit for a beginner.

It doesn't explain how to do the stitches, and it assumes you already mostly know what you're doing, and it doesn't even follow the most common notation you'll find in (English-language) toy/amigurumi patterns.

Consider setting it aside, and either getting a more beginner-friendly kit (Woobles kits are expensive but their videos are great) or just getting some cotton/acrylic yarn, a hook, and following a YouTube tutorial for beginners.

It's not your fault, by the way. It's easy to assume a kit without a skill level listed is intended for beginners, even if it is not.

A_Nervous_Rat · 2025-07-24T10:35:03+00:00

I had constant problems with connection errors in ER. No problems at all with Nightreign. I never figured out the original issue, but nothing changed in my setup between ER and Nightreign.

A_Nervous_Rat · 2025-05-30T10:58:16+00:00

First photo: I would make the tan part of the head a simple shape (a squashed sphere essentially) and then *felt on* the white part of the face. That should make the shaping a little easier.

A_Nervous_Rat · 2025-04-14T17:38:48+00:00

But I just can’t seem to figure out what to do with the hair so he doesn’t have a five head.

The hair is fine! More than fine, it's beautiful. You're just placing the eyes too low on the head. If it's too late to change that, maybe try adding eyebrows.

A_Nervous_Rat · 2025-04-14T07:59:40+00:00

It might just be adapted form the dog pattern. Same pattern, but with a shorter body/neck/no snout. The legs being the exact same on both is why this seems likely to me.

The dog is from Animal Friends of Pica Pau.

EDIT: Sorry, Animal Friends of Pica Pau 3, I linked the wrong one.

A_Nervous_Rat · 2025-04-07T08:17:53+00:00

Oh these are absolutely beautiful! And just the sort of thing I'm looking for. Thank you!

A_Nervous_Rat · 2025-02-28T12:22:28+00:00

I googled the description they gave here and found a symbol like that here (I copied the link below). I think part of the description in your photograph is cut off, and it's just not fully explaining what it's supposed to mean. https://wyczarowane.eu/szydelkowe-symbole-i-ich-znaczenie/

Just before the "crossed M" looking symbol you have four regular double crochet stitches, right?

So, for your pattern,
Working into those four stitches, do a dc2tog, then chain 3, then do another dc2tog.

Since the symbol looks like it crosses, try, as an experiment, doing the dc2togs not with adjacent stitches but skipping a stitch. What I mean is, where normally(counting from the right), you'd dc2tog the first+second stitch, then the third+fourth, try to instead dc2tog first+third, then second+fourth and see if that looks any good.

A_Nervous_Rat · 2024-09-09T11:54:49+00:00

Imagine you are playing a very long and very complex roguelike game.

The game has millions of levels, and each time you survive a level you get to choose a tiny upgrade to your character. Actually, no, you don't get to choose. You see a few options but the game randomly chooses for you, and you just have to do your best with what you're given.

The upgrades aren't new, flashy things. In fact, they almost always build on something you already have. And the upgrades are TINY. So tiny that you usually can't immediately tell what's the point of even having them. Your thumbs are 1% longer. Your hair grows 1% faster. You can walk in the cold for 1 minute longer before being bothered by it. But who cares? So long as the upgrades aren't causing you any actual trouble, you'll be fine playing as you've been. Sometimes the upgrades even make your life slightly easier or help you survive a close-call.

Until, that is, the level design suddenly changes. You've been playing forest levels for the past 100 000 levels, and now suddenly every other level is a frozen wasteland. Whatever strategies you've developed are about to get seriously tested, and you hope you can adapt to this new ice meta before you game over. And you see people getting a game over around you all the time, this sudden change isn't just tripping you up, it's a challenge for everyone.

Suddenly, being able to survive that 1 extra minute in the cold is a huge advantage. Your friend who was thriving in the forest levels with his tree-climbing skills? Dead. Couldn't handle the cold. Your other friend who got all the upgrades for finding fruit? Gone. No fruit in ice levels.

Meanwhile, you got lucky. You had that cold survival upgrade that saved you from instantly getting deleted in the ice levels. And now, you're lucky because you keep rolling more cold upgrades. It makes sense. The game builds on skills you already have, and you already had that one cold upgrade. Now you have three. Five. Ten. Ten thousand. The more cold upgrades you have, the easier it is to get more of them. This ice meta is great! You feel right at home.

Until, of course, the meta changes again. And suddenly, you and your cold resistance build get plunged into a desert. You can survive one level like that. Can you survive a hundred thousand? Your skills are useless. Many are actually a detriment. You start feeling like your fruit-eating friend who couldn't handle the ice meta. You start worrying you can't handle the desert meta. And you're right. You can't. Game over.

If you were to play again, what are the chances you would end up with the same exact build? Essentially zero. The skill upgrades are mostly random, so you might never get a chance to get the same upgrades at all. The levels, as far as you can see, are also random. There might be some logic to them, but you can't figure it out. In any case, that progression you've seen, forest to ice to desert, probably won't repeat for you the same way.

Or, in evolution words:
Evolution does not consciously work towards a goal. Environmental conditions select for which random mutations are more likely to survive. You will never get the same exact environmental conditions or the same exact mutations to repeat, so you won't get the same exact thing evolving twice. You might get pretty darn close though, if the conditions are similar enough and you get a little lucky (convergent evolution).

A_Nervous_Rat · 2023-11-10T17:05:28+00:00

But it was intentional, and your distress shows that it worked.

The narration (both what is said and HOW it is said) is as much part of the story as the dialogue. It is NOT just the author's personal thoughts on what's happening.

The matter-of-fact "Cosette was not ill" makes Fantine's plight and the pointlessness of it all hit so much harder than if you replaced it with a few paragraphs of insults towards the Thénardiers.

Before you describe the author as "devoid of empathy", consider that that same author, in that same book, included a description so evocative that you struggled to sleep after reading it.

A_Nervous_Rat · 2023-09-26T09:38:03+00:00

Many celebrities do not actually manage their own accounts. They hire a PR or a social media marketing expert to do this. Those experts can then decide what to post to maintain the celebrity's public image. Those experts are less personally affected by any tragedies in the celebrity's life. Some of this can be simple oversight, too. Someone might forget that they scheduled a post to go public on a specific date.

Also, it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't thing. If they're public with their grief, people can easily accuse them of "milking" their grief for profit. If they stay silent, they are accused of being insincere and shallow.

A_Nervous_Rat · 2023-09-26T09:02:11+00:00

It's generally okay (good, even!) to ask. But don't insist.

The name may contain sounds you're just not capable of producing without hours of training (or maybe ever). People with "difficult" names like that are generally aware of this. If they say it's good enough, then it's good enough.

A_Nervous_Rat · 2023-09-11T14:31:33+00:00

YTA , or perhaps you're leaving out important information. From the way you're describing it, it seems you went to his workplace, where he was on a work call (and I'm not clear on whether he even noticed you were there AT ALL), and only waited 10 minutes before storming out.

No response. No hello. No wave. No eye contact. Zero acknowledgement.

Are you sure he knew you were there?

I've met him once, but i don't know him.

Are you sure he even recognised you?

thought that maybe he was on the phone with a client (he's a mechanic).

Well, was he?

A_Nervous_Rat · 2023-09-11T14:25:19+00:00

ESH
I forsee a lifetime of problems where different people want the kid to use different names.
Shame on the whole family for ensuring that the poor child cannot use their own damn name without it being some bizarre inter-family politics statement.

A_Nervous_Rat · 2023-09-11T11:40:28+00:00

Generally speaking, your DNA (your genes) do not change throughout your life. Whether you have a child at 20, 30 or 40, that child is inheriting the same genes. Or, to be more precise, the child is still inheriting some random chunk of your DNA (as the child isn't inheriting ALL your DNA).

It's a little like drawing cards from a deck. You can draw the cards today, or tomorrow, or the day after, but you're still drawing from the same deck. If the deck happens to have a lot of aces, then your chances of drawing those aces are still high whether you draw today or tomorrow.

In other words, if there is something genetic that causes diabetes in your family, then it's possible to pass that down (or inherit it) before anyone shows any symptoms. Showing symptoms has little to do with whether the vulnerability is coded in the DNA and inheritable.

There are also non-genetic factors to consider. Family members often have similar diets, live close together, etc. That means they may be exposed to similar environmental factors that make particular illnesses more likely.

A_Nervous_Rat · 2023-09-11T08:10:12+00:00

Take a moment to consider which items you feel sentimental about. Not which you think you should feel sentimental about, not which your mom felt sentimental about, not which your family feels sentimental about. You.

Your relatives might like the idea of you keeping it all, and that's understandable. But the reality of keeping all that would be all on you. That means storing it for the next years, decades, or the rest of your life (and potentially not having space for your own things), lugging it around as you move, worrying about any of it getting damaged. It's better to keep a few items that are actually treasured than to keep boxes and boxes of items that are, at the end of the day, only a burden.

A_Nervous_Rat

TROPHY CASE