Well, just be glad you werent around during the infancy of the Crafting script. Man, THAT kept life interesting!!
Anyways, you gotta understand that at any time, you've got about 10 people crafting at any given time on West. With all that script floating around, things will get fookered. But usually, from my experience, if you see somehting on the dialog boxes that dont look right, just exit out and start the dialog again, and you'll be straight.
I was making some Lion leather once and it said I was making Cobalt(?) Half Plate AND I was sucessful in making my lion leather, note, I havn't made it yet. I didnt get any items, I just canceled out and started the dialog again and everything was fine.
Marv-o-matic