WOYWW - 88

It is not a coincidence that my desk has not changed at all since last week.  In fact, this is one of the photos I posted last week, the reason being that all I have done is more and more knitting on this shawl, with a fair bit of backing to put right mistakes.  Having done this pattern once before, I really should have learned from my experiences then, but learning from experience is not my strong point.  It looks fantastic when done, but it is evil to do.  Not only was there a critical mistake in the pattern,, but another part could be read in several different ways, most of which make a mess of the design.  I am now working on the final part which is the outside lacy border, which goes all round in one very long piece, with 600 rows to complete - yes that is SIX HUNDRED.  It is a 20 row pattern with the number of stitches varying between 19 and 25, depending on the row.  I cannot do any of it if I am disturbed in any way.  I can't talk, and have to be very careful what music I put on to avoid getting sidetracked.  The first time I did this shawl for my daughter nearly caused a divorce, and the loss of good friends.  We all survived, but total concentration is the only thing that works.

The only other thing remotely crafty that I have done this week is to buy a couple of things.  I have finally decided that I definitely NEED a new light box for embossing and parchment work - it is an A4 LED box which puts out far less heat than my original A5 kit, which actually melted my embossing mat.  Can't wait for that to arrive - I had the embossing and pricking mats for it for Christmas.

My other purchase is a new 2 terrabyte (big) external hard drive to take all my media stuff.  My existing one has done well, but is now struggling with the amount I am asking it to do.  I copy all my CD ROM's to the external drive and then put the originals away (I do not get rid of them as that could cause copyright problems).  That enables me to flip from one to another and move images however I want to create what I want.  I can open several discs at the same time.  I also store all my photos on the external drive and all my music.  Again, I can pull any of my photos into any card creation I fancy, edit them and put them together with anything else.  I am considering installing My Craft Studio on the external drive which would allow me to carry it around and use it on any computer I want to work on.

Sorry I did not get back to all of you last week, but knitting did take over my life.  Thank you to all those who visited me and left such lovely comments.  Don't forget to pop over to see Julia, who hosts all our desks at http://stamping-ground.blogspot.com/