The Quest Continues...

Despite today being Monday, I managed to try out two more motifs today.
I don't really like the way either of them turned out.
The first one was from the book Beyond the Square by Edie Eckman, as most of the motifs I've tried have been. (Actually, I think all of them have been, until today.)
Motif #93 looks so cool in the book. And actually, my one-color trial didn't turn out too bad:

It isn't very big (5.5" square), probably because I reduced the starting chain.
My issue with this square is the counting. I miscounted on the 2nd round, and didn't discover the mistake immediately. Then, when I was re-counting, I miscounted again.
That's a bit frustrating, and I don't want to get upset with every square I crochet. So it's off the table.

The second square I tried, I found on Ravelry. It's the Forest Chains square by Jessica Gil. It's a 12" square and the examples on Ravelry look awesome, so I thought I'd try it.
It didn't work out so well.
Something is wrong here. Since I've been having an issue with counting today, I double-checked it, thinking maybe I added an extra stitch that I shouldn't have, but no...

 I gave up on this one before it was finished.

It's just too ruffled, and although I really like the other squares folks have made, I just don't want to go through the hassle of fixing it.
We'll try again with some different squares tomorrow.