If at first you don't succeed... ask Mumsnet

So, I'm knitting quite a few squares for the Mumsnet blankets, some on behalf of other people who have donated wool. MrsKwazii's daughter liked CareBears, plus one of my donors gave me some red wool to knit with even though red wasn't on The List of Approved Colours so back to Ravelry I go, and I found this gem:

Lovely, I thought. The pattern is 'intermediate' level but, wouldn't you know, that's exactly the word I used to describe my knitting capablities just the other day to a friend. I don't have a clashing pink teacup, but otherwise it's all looking good.


Until I get to row 11. The instruction is as follows:
(K1 P1) twice. K4. yo [Sl1. K2tog. psso. (yo) twice] 6 times. Sl1. K2tog. psso. yo. K4. (P1 K1) twice.


Er, que? Who with the what now? I checked in The Book and I'm none the wiser. I just can't make this work with 37 stitches, no matter how much I want to.


I think about my experiences with the cabling pattern. And the disaster that was the last 4-way mitred square, and how that made me feel (crap, basically).
So, I ask on the blanket thread on Mumsnet and everyone is lovely, really helpful. But I'm still not getting it, quite, so they actually start another thread just to help sort me out, and so we don't derail the original thread. 
Not only do I - eventually - get to the point where I understand what I'm meant to be doing, but another member, tribpot, photographs the stages step-by-step to get us all through it and then re-writes the pattern so it's not only easier, but better, avoiding the now-named 'Yawning Chasms Caused by Double Yarn-Overs of Doom'. (Not only are they better than me at knitting, they are far, far wittier.) GleamingHeels notices - gasp! - a mistake in the original pattern as well. Beaten, and improved. Job done. And here's my finished article - by Jove, it actually looks like the original:

Team Heart has won. It wasn't easy; as trib said:

 '<mops brow again> It was brutal, man. BRUTAL.' 

But we did it. And [emotional cough] - together. 


Next: trib, my new Best Knitting Friend, is going to translate the cabled tree pattern for me. I will NOT be beaten. I CAN do this, I WILL do this. [sticks two fingers up at unclear patterns]