Frustrations with Yarn

I am a knitter.  But knitting does not come naturally to me....at all.  My brain cannot see patterns three dimensionally.  It's very frustrating.

My friend is helping me with my first sweater and I finally finished a sleeve and shoulder.  Yay!  The shoulder meant I had to tackle my fear of short rows and wrap and turns (w&t).  When I attempted to do it on my own, I knew I was doing it all wrong.  So I waited until my friend could show me.  Once she did, it seemed comically simplistic.  

So why can't my brain see a pattern and make sense of how the stitches work?  Once I finished my short rows on Saturday, without the supervision of my friend, I had the wrong number of stitches.  Seriously?  La sigh.

I love the idea of knitting.  I love yarn.  I love quick projects that I can interpret without aid.  But I'm so tired of needing help!  And part of my frustration is that I feel like there's no way I can ever know it all.  There are so many tricks of the trade..... how do knitters keep them all straight?!  It's overwhelming!  And I'm not even a super uber novice anymore!  

That's my rant for today.  Thanks for listening.  I may work on the cowl I recently started - a short and sweet project.  At least I can do that on my own!