What is it???

SO I started a new project and this one is a gift for a friend!  But I haven't told anyone what it actually is yet as I share my progress photos!  What could it be?!?!?!?!  I'm really enjoying the fact that it looks pretty much nothing like what it is until the final details get added.  HAHA

For the most part this is a pretty easy pattern to follow but I did have some "beginner" trouble in the very beginning making me think I didn't understand the instructions so I drew out what I thought it said to do in diagram style...sure enough I fully understood...yet why did it seem my stitches were off???  Come to find out I was counting the slip stitch and working into it when I was supposed to skip it...ah well...which means until I figured that out I thought I was doing something wrong and now I realize I had taken out a stitch in the first row to get row 2's count right........I just left it since I don't think it's going to be detrimental.

However I had some serious trouble when it came to joining these 2 split sections together at the top!!!  The instructions are VERY UNCLEAR about how to do it.  I realize that it's a difficult thing to put into words so I wanted to write to the designer on Etsy to see if she could offer any additional help that might clarify for me because the below picture is what I read the instructions to tell me to do.  That results in a wonky what the heck that doesn't make sense.........

Well the designer wrote back said she couldn't see what was happening and couldn't help me and that anyone well versed in crochet knows it's a simple thing to do but it's difficult to explain.  SO I pulled myself up by the boot straps again checked on Ravelry to see photos of that section and just took an educated guess as to what in the heck is supposed to happen...and TaDA I give you I-guess-I'm-well-versed-enough-to-make-an-educated-guess...

After doing that up, in what I think the instructions are supposed to explain, I reread them and nope...I think they are garbled up in such a way that I wouldn't know to do what I actually ended up doing and I think I could explain it to others, which I did in the pattern notes on Ravelry JIC anyone else like me is trying to find what in the heck is supposed to happen there.  Vent Complete!  HAHA I guess it just kinda broke my heart since I love helping people so much and always try my best when someone asks.  But at the same time I get it, she's probably had a ton of crappy people being crappy and so it just seemed like I was yet one more person like that even though I tried really hard to not come across like that...I just wanted a tiny bit of clarification and wasn't accusing in any way I understand that it's hard to write things for everyone to understand and I know I'm at the beginner side of intermediate.  Ahh well.  I got passed it and I'm still grateful for the pattern at all and it really is well written overall and I'm happy with it.

And lookie it's getting long!!! Heehee! ;)