Where did the day go?

Yesterday started with a crazy desire to design something. I got up at 6, and went right to my desk, the second hat with I-cord was staring at me. It turns out to be very time consuming, boring repeats as I carefully made notes, trying to make the second one not so much like a tea cosy... Decided to park it...

Off it went to the side.

I had made a wonderful scarf out of 100% Alpaca des Andes (L'Alpaga de Plassard) that I picked up while in France in January. Not too expensive, wonderful softness and colors. But as I started, I found myself wondering if I could incorporate a different stitch pattern, and that's when the fun (or so I thought) started. Got my Traditional knitted lace shawls book from M.Watermann, browsing for a wavy stitch....Decided on Cockleshell, I always wanted to try that one out. Of course would have been too simple to make straight out the way it was written, I wanted 1 large cockle in the middle and 2 smaller ones framing it. Figure if I decreased the pattern repeat by 6 sts, would work out fine.....hmm

That's when the day took off on me. The first cast on was ok. I wrote down by hand everything I did as I went, until I got to the 10th row of the pattern...Center worked fine, after all it was straight out of the book. The sides did not want to add up and ended out with 6 extra stitches, Arghhh.

Went to the comp and proceeded to chart, so I could see where the problem was. Was 11.30am.

I have downloaded a wonderful knitting font, Knitting Symbols by CET , very simple, but as I had not used it in a year could not remember the key. So another 1/2 hour took off on me as I painstakingly printed my own key. Thinking that it was waisting my time I recalled seeing another one at the Knitters magazine site, and downloaded that one...There went another hour....I have to say that I enjoyed myself so far. The Knitters one is very easy to use as you don't have to make a graph, the symbols write themselves in a little square using a word processor program. By the time I figured that one out it was 2.30!!! No knitting just plowing through technical stuff. The results were what I thought 2 very precise charts...

4pm, gotta make diner, eat, pee, and looking forward to frog the all thing out and start again.

Here is the paperwork.

The 3rd attempt...

After 2 repeats still doesn't look or work quite right, notice the scribbles on my very carefully printed chart.

10pm, am going to sleep on it...