deciphering the poom's english**

holly and i bounced back and forth on starmore's instructions like a couple of ESL kids. holly had it right all along. the only stumbling block was the centre bit.*

here is my interpretation of the mess after our discussion, shown upside down for stitch clarity.

hole check

we figured out that the instructions is nothing more than a way to stuff five stitches into one, with the centre stitch being the middle one of five. this is one of those instances where a picture would say it all. but that would be too easy.

* the correct spelling would be center.
** my friend bean once referred to debbie bliss as a poom. i imagine she feels the same about alice.