Patterns are dumb (or I am... either way, really)

Remember how I said I'd finish the hoarfrost shawl last time?

Yeah.
I do too.

I just... ran into something kind of higgity, and now I don't know what comes next. You see, when I started this thing the first time, I did a single repeat on the correct needles and thought, "This looks stupid. You can't even see the lace when the stitches have this much negative space." So I went down 2 needle sizes. I like the fabric I get from this significantly more than that first go-around.

Well, I told you I needed to get roughly 26 inches out of the first cone if I was going to have enough yarn to finish the project, and son of a gun, I got all 26 of those inches (weeee!). Then I did a count to see how many increases I had already completed and how many more I would need to do in the remaining 7 inches (33 inches before the decrease section). The answer was 7. Each repeat takes roughly 1.5 inches, on the low end of the estimate. That's 10.5 inches.

Remember the part where I went down 2 needle sizes?
Remember how that's supposed to make your stitches per inch greater, thereby making the number of rows worked to achieve a certain length increase?

So on reduced needles, well below gauge, I'm going to exceed the specified length requirements by more than 4 inches... What? I put it down for a while. I'm trying to decide if I should work 33 inches and just start the decreases at their rough starting point or if I should do all the increases and make a slightly larger cowl...

I... I don't even know. Maybe it just needs a time out.

In an effort to not knit the hoarfrost, I started my second Lyra on Saturday with yarn I got from a going-out-of-business sale (boo for the economy but yay for my wallet). I'm planning on making the square this time and using slightly larger needles to make sure it actually covers my table. It's pretty and blue, and I finished row 60/180 today, which means I'm about 1/3 done on paper and 1/1000 done on the actual knitting (heh. Really, that's closer to 20%, but those rows towards the end are going to be unceasingly long)

I want to have it done by Christmas (for no particular reason. I just want it done by then), so we'll see if I can set a deadline and keep it.