Many many MANY years ago, when I lived near, and shopped regularly in Australia's murder capital (Frankston, Victoria, in case you're interested), I came across a very cool little crochet doily book from the 1930-40's in a very cool 2nd hand book shop.

In it was a very attractive knitted doily. I paid my $4 and took the attractive knitted doily pattern home.

Several years went by, in which I learnt a great deal about copyright and found out that the attractive knitted doily pattern was definitely in the public domain and I could legally put it on my website.

"Yay", thought I, and promptly set to typing it out because I lived in the middle of nowhere and had nothing better to do.

Fast forward a month or so and the attractive knitted doily found it's way onto the internet.

Six people made the attractive knitted doily and thanked me for putting the pattern up.

Several people asked me for the corrections. I emailed them back and told them that I hadn't made one yet, but 6 people had and didn't tell me there were any errors so I was assuming there weren't any.

One person cursed me for not changing the appropriate k2togs to ssk's, but I ignored them.

Several more people asked for corrections. I began to think something was up with the attractive knitted doily pattern. I started calling it "The Badly Written Doily" and avoided it at all costs. I briefly considered taking it off the internet, but since by now over 10 people had finished it successfully, I decided to just put a warning on it instead.

Then along came a knitter who made it, and was willing to tell me what was wrong with the pattern (not stitch by stitch, but enough info to correct it).

Many emails later, I had charted out his corrections, and with info from two or three others who had knit it and some corrections of my own, I came up with charts for most of the pattern.

Then I put it away for 2 years because I was sick of the sight of it.

2 days ago I finished all my UFO's and sat wondering exactly what I could knit in 38 degree C heat. "Something cotton", thinks I. "Something challenging would be nice after all those easy projects. So out came the mostly corrected version of The Badly Wrtitten Doily and some big balls of mercerised cotton from the stash.

I'm up to round 43 but I need to tink a round or two because I dropped a k2tog and I can't get the yo after it to look right after I picked it up again.

And I'm thinking of changing the name to "That Bastard of a Badly Written Doily"...