How to use the row counter....

This would be SOOOO much better with piccies, but as I pointed out, I am notoriously bad with getting pictures up, especially since the camera with the easy software had a bad accident...

Anyway, so here is what you got, and how it works.

There is a long chain. It has a bird at one end, (your namesake), a lobster claw at the other end (No relation that I know of) and in between a little flock of small flying things.

If you lay it out on the table, you will see that there are plain rings between the birds. They are not huge, because this was made for sock knitting.

What you do is put your needle, on your first pattern round, through the first circle (jump ring), the one closest to the bigger bird, and then knit around till you come to it again. When you do, take the needle on the right, insert it in the next jump ring down, the one after that next bird, and drop the first jump ring of the left needle.

You have now counted one row.

There are at least 12 jump rings there, and depending how you count possibly 13 or 14. You don't have to count a dozen every time. Let us say you have a 6 row pattern. Take that lobster claw and bring it up to attach in the SEVENTH jump ring. Now use the row counter, and when you get to the jump ring with the lobster claw attached, you know you go back to round one. Just stick the right needle back in that very first jump ring.

Now if you have to do something spiffy, like cross cables, on one of the rows, you can attach a crochet stitch marker/earingtype stitch marker in the appropriate jump ring, so when you get to it you can say "Oh! Time to cable!"

And if none of this makes any sense you can just use it as a bracelet or attach it to your waistcoat with the lobster claw and stick the bird in your watch pocket...

As I said, I made it for socks, so the jump rings are small. If that is a problem you can get bigger jump rings, or mail it back and I will replace them with larger.

And if this still makes no sense, let me know and I will get Kim to take pictures...