Good morning friends. I woke up at 3:30 and was unable to fall back asleep, so today’s post is brought to you by caffeine and fatigue.

I hope you all had a great weekend. We had a good one. Husband played another show Friday night at a neat venue with some great bands.  Saturday we spent packing and dropping off a rental van’s worth of items to Goodwill and Half Price Books.  Yesterday my brother came up, and we hung out with some of our friends before going to see Bully.  Their set was shorter, since they were the opener, but the show was still really good. I wasn’t as close to the stage as I have been their past several shows because the idea of waiting in line until doors opened did not spark joy.

So in my last post, I mentioned that I was about to hit a tricky part in the Asymmetrical Shawl pattern (Sea Thistle on Ravelry).  It was a bunch of half double crochet crossed stitches, as seen below:

Photo Credit:  Simply Crochet, Issue 48

I couldn’t get the stitches or the stitch count to work, and I wasn’t even sure it I wanted the aesthetic of the crossed stitches in my shawl, so I undid the rows in frustration. I then spent another 30 minutes scrolling through like two thousand Ravelry patterns, but was unable to find another I wanted to try.  After doing some thinking, I decided to modify the crossed stitches in the pattern with something more at my skill level. I replaced the stitches with some double crochet stitches.

Whew, these are some uneven edges that I hope will look slightly better after blocking. But I like where the shawl is going, so I’ll keep playing with this pattern modification.

I’d better get ready for work. As long as I don’t sound incoherent during a client call, I should be able to hide in my office with some coffee and get through today. Have a great Monday!