Subjects and Verbs that Don't Agree and Dangling Participles

A friend recently dropped off some books for me. The pile included a small, self-published chapbook that was put together by some other people.
While I admire the effort of self-publishing, (and, let's face it, the ability to actually finish a story or two--something I'm finding increasingly difficult)the grammar and sentence structure errors in many of the stories left me twitching, groaning and rolling my eyes.
Honestly, I'm not that much of a nit-picker over grammar. Well, maybe a little. Okay, maybe a lot. In fact, my nit-picking is why I'm so slow to produce anything. I agonize over every sentence, every comma--to the point that it often interrupts the flow of my writing. The thought of submitting a piece of writing with glaring errors makes me cringe. I still don't get it all right, but I keep trying.
The main problem in this little chapbook seemed to be subject verb agreement in some sentences.
In one story the protagonist is trying to kill a giant scorpion that has invaded her house. Here's an example of where the author has an agreement problem: "Jumping over it, I reached the closet door."
Obviously, the author meant to say that she jumped over the scorpion and then reached the closet door, but instead it sounds like she jumped over the closet door.
One of my biggest no-no's is mistakenly using the dreaded dangling participle. Like this sentence: "The baby grasped the old man's pants leg with pink, chubby fingers."
I submitted a writing exercise to my instructor that contained that sentence. She got a good laugh out of it, as I remember. Naturally, I meant to say that the baby had pink, chubby fingers, not the guy's pants.
I keep that sentence in my mind every time I'm writing to make sure my participles don't dangle.
When it comes to editing, nit-picking will only get one so far. Eventually, I have to turn my stories over to someone else, asking her to please be on the look out for grammar goofs or sentences that are unclear or awkward.
An honest, knowledgeable proof-reader is a writer's best friend. Mine is.