Frustration.

Hello

Yesterday I was trying to make a Mohawk hat for my son. It consists of making the ear flaps first and then knitting it all together. The pattern was frustrating to read. It said to CO 3 stitches.
Sl1 M1 K1 M1 K1    (Slip 1 Make 1 Knit 1 Make 1 Knit 1)
Sl1 Purl        (Slip 1 Purl the rest)
Sl1 M1 K3 M1 K1    (Slip 1 Make 1 Knit 3 Make 1 Knit 1)
Sl1 Purl         (Slip 1 Purl the rest)
and the pattern continue this increase till 17 stitches.

Slipping the first stitch was simple enough, but I continued the pattern I could not make one at the beginning of the row. I looked up again how to slip a stitch and also how to make a stitch on youtube.com and still I could not get it to work. I decided to change the pattern to 
K1 M1 K1 M1 K1    (Knit 1 Make 1 Knit 1 Make 1 Knit 1)
Purl       
K1 M1 K3 M1 K1    (Knit 1 Make 1 Knit 3 Make 1 Knit 1)
Purl      

This worked out great!
Then I made the mistake of trying to read the pattern again. I had to undo and redo 3 times. Then when i finally thought that I got it, I forgot to add stitches and I got fed up! I unraveled the whole thing.
I switched to a different pattern and hat type all together.
So far the new pattern has been straight foward. I'll be taking pictures of the progress and when I am done I will post it up with a link to the free pattern.
Thanks for reading
Ruthie