DI-WHY? When a tutorial fails to convey its detail

I'm sure we've all done it dear reader, watched or read an online tutorial and thought - I can do that. That's so easy. (Such is my ENTIRE pintrest experience.) Until you try it, and everything goes wrong.

Let me 'esplain. About a month ago, I saw this pin show up on my pintrest feed. Now, I'm not the kind of girl to wear ruffles, but I LOVE them on things. And I had a set of sheets that, while beautiful, were never going to be used. So, I pinned the link and swore I would come back to it to make. Enter the tutorial. My spectacular seamstress of a mother laughed when she heard the steps. 'First of all,' she said, 'you my dear daughter will want "real" ruffles and real ruffles take twice as much material as what you're sewing on to.' Then there were the questions about structure and stability and what would happen if I threw it in the laundry. Needless to say, what should have been a day project where you just cut strips and sew, turned into a 3 day marathon ruffle extravaganza with questions, rulers, and french seams. All in all, I love my new throw...but I might like my accent pillow even more...

What I learned was that while the tutorial is an overall guideline, the finer details are not highlighted or even expressed. I don't know how someone without some serious sewing skills or love of ruffles would finish the throw even if they started it. And it hasn't just been the ruffle tutorial. I can't tell you how many hair tutorials or photoshop walk throughs I've tried and I KNOW there are steps missing.Or what about that Pride and Prejudice jacket you wanted desperately, but then we you started it, the directions made NO sense at all. You all know what I mean, period DIY's and how to's are sometimes the worst culprits.

So what can we do? Talk about them! Tutorials are meant to be tried. So lets try them, and well, try to break them. If we try a tutorial and it doesn't work for us, or it does, or you realized there's a better modification - share it! I think everyone will thank you for it. And NEVER think its a day project :)

That being said, here are some other tutorials found on pintrest I can't wait to try: