Courtesy of PBS

“Rules are made to be broken.” Who said that? I asked Google that question and got this brief bit:

“The original quote was made by a man who should know: American General, Douglas MacArthur (who famously broke a lot of rules). His actual quote is: ‘Rules are mostly made to be broken and are too often for the lazy to hide behind.’”

I don’t know about the last part of that quote but I can understand why he said that. For the most part, rules do not promote critical thinking.

But sometimes rules are a good thing. Especially if it means following instructions if you really, really, really want a certain outcome.

For several days in a row, my husband kiddingly said, “Where’s the pudding?” after eating dinner. So I decided to make some pudding and surprise him with it one recent evening. I was fairly sure he would ask me again.

Thing is, he is lactose intolerant (lactase pills don’t really help him) and I am allergic to cow’s milk. The recipe for tapioca pudding called for milk, but I substituted water. I didn’t want to use coconut milk because then it would taste like coconut. I followed the recipe to the letter except for the milk.

It never did set up. But I presented it anyway when he asked, “Where’s the pudding.” We had a good laugh and he ate some anyway. He said the taste was good but the texture was more like a thick, cold gel. Kind of weird really.

I told him that if I did that again, I’d use less water and more tapioca and then maybe it would set up. He asked me if I followed the recipe and I said yes. And then he said something that has stuck with me. He said, “Well, that’s your problem right there. You never measure anything. Mostly you estimate and wing it and it turns out fine.” That would be the critical thinking part of the equation.

So, this brings me to the real reason I decided to write about this. I wanted to crochet a bucket hat.

Courtesy of Sarah Maker. This was the exact pattern I wanted to use for my bucket hat.

I’ve been crocheting for decades but only recently learned how to crochet a flat circle. You need that for the top of the bucket hat.

The basic principal is simple really. However many stitches you start with in the first round, that’s how many stitches you increase each subsequent round. But the instructions for doing this were a bit unwieldy and required that you followed them explicitly. And I found it a bit difficult to keep track of where I was and what I had to do next. The instructions suggested using stitch markers. I’ve never used stitch markers and do not own any.

Then I realized something. If round one had six stitches, then round two needed 12 stitches and round three would need 18 stitches, and so on. I saw that for round three, if I counted to three and placed the third stitch in the same single crochet as the number two stitch, I would automatically increase that round by six stitches after counting to three six times (3 times 6 is 18). It was sort of automatic.

For round four, I counted to four and put the fourth stitch in the same single crochet as the third stitch. Eh voila! And the nice thing is, this way all you have to do in order to know what to do in the next round is count how many rounds you have completed. So you can put it aside any time you need and pick it up again easily.

That was fine for the crown, but when I got to the sides, the instructions were an even bigger mess. So I broke it down and realized they wanted me to increase only every fourth round and then only by four stitches. Well, that was going to be too hard to figure using my personal method, so I increased by six as I had been doing. I didn’t think it would make that much of a difference.

I charted it out by numbering each round and indicating how many stitches should make up that round and it worked like a charm.

Courtesy of Peach Unicorn Designs. Cloche hat.

For the brim, I was instructed to increase every other round and my chart accommodated that too. The thing is, when I was done, I did not have a bucket hat. I had a cloche. A cloche is a much cuter hat than a bucket. But I had wanted a bucket hat.

I have some nice satin ribbon that I will used to make a band for the cloche hat and then I will probably never wear it. It’s too nice for why I wanted the bucket hat.

I wanted the bucket hat for working in the yard.

So, sometimes it’s a good idea to follow the rules. But then …

Courtesy of A-Z Quotes