I don't speak Spanish

Alternative title: why Google Translate is Not Great, but is also hilarious.

I wanted this year to make some more clothing-y type things, particularly summer based items.

Everyone knows that knitted and crocheted stuff can keep you warm during the winter. Not many people think of knitted and crocheted stuff during the summer, do they?

Look at this cute crocheted sunhat!

But in an effort to expand my range and include a fair amount of summery suitable things, I went trawling through Ravelry for patterns, and I found a really lovely one: boleros!

I was really excited...until I opened the page and it was in Spanish.

Which is fine. Spanish is great. Except I don't read Spanish. My experience of Spanish consists of moving to a school that did Spanish lessons from one that didn't, spending a term with free periods while my classmates did their Spanish lessons, blagging my way onto the Spanish trip by saying that I wanted to learn Spanish and immersing myself in the culture would be really helpful (I actually just wanted a holiday abroad with my best friend), and visiting Spain for a week on my honeymoon.

Anyway, when you open a page that isn't in your native language in Chrome, it pops up a little popup at the bottom of the screen that says "would you like to translate this page?" Obviously I clicked yes.

Except we all know Google translate isn't foolproof. In fact, far from it.

And there's no chart.

So I was left with the hilarious task of translating the Engrish that resulted from the "translation", and squinting at the pictures in the hopes that I can figure out what was meant by "assemble a rib in each stitch" and "attach with a slippery point".

I did it. And it is a really fabulous pattern. I absolutely love it, and I can't wait to make a whole range of them (in additional to the *ahem* six I've already made) in multiple colours and yarns. Searching for the perfect buttons to go with the yarns I picked was particularly fun :)

The pattern sizes from 3-6 months right up to 6-8 years, and it's possible that I could size it up further. I may well try that in the next few months for my smallest girl, as she really likes boleros.

I made a couple with the frilly edge that is in the pattern, and a couple with a straighter edge, because not everyone is a fan of frilly edges. (It had nothing to do with my having less yarn in those colours. Nope. Nothing at all to do with that.)

Here are the ones I made: