Lace + Heroes = Bad Idea

After having such great luck yesterday with my After Hours shawl, I spent all day today itching to get back to it. It was just so much fun. Knowing that I reallllllly need to get Dragonflies done by the end of the month, and that I don't actually have to finish After Hours until Christmas, I was a good girl and did a row of Dragonflies while watching Heroes before getting back to the knitted lace. The problem is that I got involved in the plot and I didn't want to stop watching it when I wanted to start working on the lace. Yesterday I discovered that it takes one heck of a lot of concentration to follow the chart and knit with fingering weight yarn on slippery size 11 needles. I had to give up on watching tv or trying to chat with anyone and just focus on the pattern. Once I got into the groove I was able to turn music on, but that's it. Tonight I started out with the music and the knitting, but I sooooooo wanted to know what happened on the show and I thought I was doing good with the pattern reading, so I got cocky and watched the next episode. Big mistake. On the row before I was supposed to put in the next lifeline I totally screwed up. Somehow I'm off by like 2 stitches. It's enough of a difference that it needs to be fixed, but I can't figure out where the problem is. I just stared at it for like half an hour. This is what I get for being distracted by the pretty. How can I be expected to focus on the knitting with Peter and Sylar fighting. I should have just put down the needles. But I didn't. And now I'm paying for it. Arg. I should also know better than to knit at night. Now I'm all craky and sad and stressed and tired and sleeping is going to be an issue. Also having a total "I freaking hate knitting" moment. So wish me luck. In a few seconds I'm going to rip out 9ish rows of lace. Yeah, thats more than 3 hours worth of work. I'm going to have to step away from this for a few days before I kill it. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Maybe I'll put lifelines in every other row now.

This means I don't have a pretty crafty pic to post tonight. The second triangle of Dragonflies looks exactly like the first one, and the current state of After Hours is less than the pic I posted yesterday. Dammit. Seems wrong not to post a picture of something though, so here's a shot of Peter trying to kill Sylar - the scene that started it all. Stupid distracting tv.

Day 11, Triangle 2: 9 shells = 40 min
Average: 4.4 minutes per shell
Total: 198 shells = 14 hours 40 min

Happy Labor Day!

This weekend was a crazy busy one and I should really be thinking about sleep, so this is just going to be a quick post with lots of pictures :-)

On Friday I finished Swatch #2 and got a couple more rows done on the Slytherin Ggester.

Saturday was filled with dyeing 3 skeins of yarn (Buttered Popcorn, Secret Santa, and Clifford), and lots of work on Triangle #2 of Dragonflies.

Sunday I went to the fair and didn't do any craftyness of any sort. I did try deep fried oreos though. Can we say ewwwwwwwwww?

Today was spent recovering from all day at the fair. Made some stitch markers for some upcoming swaps (I love my new design!) and for the After Hours shawl since the TARDIS ones I love so much are just too cumbersome for this lace project. I also got to row 15 on the shawl! Not one problem with it yet. Go me :-D I love that I can finally start to see the design coming together. Btw the red line through the pattern is a lifeline. If I do encounter any problems I can rip back to that row and it'll hold my stitches so I don't have to start the whole thing over again.

Day 10, Triangle 2: 36 shells = 2 hours 35 min
Average: 4.3 minutes per shell
Total: 189 shells = 14 hours

Planning for September

Last week was awesome. I spent lots of time crafting, but I wasn't under any pressure. All I had to do was finish Spock and work on Dragonflies. I finished Spock ahead of schedule and life was good. I even prepared for the upcoming KALs I'm starting this week. My crafting mojo rocked. But September is almost here, which is just that much closer to birthdays and Christmas. I'm going for a completely hand made Christmas, which means I should have started the crafting a couple months ago. Oops. At least I'm thinking of it now instead of in early December like I usually do!

Even though I should be focusing on gifts, I started the Mad Hatters KAL today with my super awesome TioLiRR swap group. For those that don't know, KAL stands for knit-a-long. This time around we're knitting bettymcknit's Ggester (pattern is on sale now for the KAL if you want it at a discount and knit along with us) and since there's a bunch of HP fans in our little group there's at least one person from each house knitting in house colors. I am, of course, knitting mine in green and silver for Slytherin. Yeah! I've decided this is going to be my lunch time knitting project so I'm not eating up my big blocks of crafty time with something silly just for me. I'm already to row 6 of the ribbing!

Wednesday will be the first day for the After Hours Shawl KAL. I'm really excited to start this one because it will be my first attempt at knitting lace and working with beads. Mom really liked the look of it, so this is going to be her Christmas present. I hope to finish it fairly quickly so she still has time to forget about it before December 25th rolls around. The pattern won't be released until Sept 1st, but my yarn and beads are ready to go!

I just put the finishing stitches in on the first triangle of Dragonflies. I'm under my predicted time and hope to keep reducing speed. Didn't take a new picture because I'm lazy, but it doesn't look a whole lot different than it did yesterday. I have a month left until I have to ship it out - lets hope I don't so distracted with the new projects that I forget about it. I'm still really enjoying working on it so I don't see that being a problem... yet.

This afternoon the BFF sprung on me that she'd really like some fingerless gloves in Seahawks colors so now I'm looking up patterns to see what I can throw together for her birthday. I have between now and Oct 19 to figure out and execute colorwork. Eek! Somewhere in there I should also start working on my Knitting Masters program since I received the coursework today and bought my swatch yarn, figure out wtf I'm going to make for Dad for his birthday and/or Christmas (he's the worst person to shop for, even harder to make things for), and start crocheting sparkly snowflakes. The next couple of months are going to be crazy!

Day 9, Triangle 1: 17 shells = 1 hour 10 min
Average: 4.1 minutes per shell
Total: 153 shells = 11 hours 25 min