Like cjsews, I started sewing very early in life and was making Barbie clothes when I was 8 years old and since many of the patterns made no sense to me then I started doing it my way. When buying a pattern that looks intricate to me, I read it very carefully, do my best to follow their directions and usually end up doing what works best for me. When the QIAD show was on our local PBS station and Simply Quilts was on HGTV I watched them with great interest to learn some new ways. (Don't you hate to take a class to learn a new process and there is always one person that has to tell the instructor they are doing it wrong.) Some patterns do have errors - but sometimes, we just have a different way of doing it. When in doubt make a test run.