What is happening to me??

I was going to start this post "Earlier this month," and then I realized it was February. Yikes ...

Anyways. Back in January I broke down and bought a course on Craftsy, on lace design. Once you buy a course you have unlimited access to the videos and can watch them at your own pace, so the plan was for me to watch the course "later." When I didn't have mittens and a baby sweater in my future and a partially finished shawl on the needles.

But then I memorized the pattern of the shawl I was working on and figured, what the heck. I can watch and knit at the same time.

And then ... I went a little crazy.

For three days I abandoned everything else. I mean, I made dinner and took care of the baby, don't get me wrong; but every ounce of free time was spent with graph paper and stitch dictionaries and needles and yarn, and it resulted in this:

I'm both embarrassed and proud of that swatch/teeny tiny shawl. Embarrassed because I made so many mistakes that could have been avoided if I'd been more patient rather than having to plow on ahead and knitknitknit. (Notice the kind of funny shape? It's supposed to be a triangle ...) But proud because I designed it. And I know how to fix what's wrong with it. And it isn't too shabby, all things considered.

Now things are building in my head. Ideas for various designs. Accumulating.

Is this what happens when you're addicted? It's not enough to knit other people's patterns--you have to design your own?

Of course, I am getting way ahead of myself, which is part of the crazy. One little swatch somehow equals an imminent collection of lace shawls.

Meanwhile, I have cast on my second mitten, and I am loving it so much I find myself perusing other mitten patterns, and also various grid patterns that might translate to colorwork, and I catch myself thinking, "Now, this wouldn't be so hard, would it? To translate these patterns onto a mitten? I could do that. I could design a mitten."

Oh my gracious.

This is getting bad.

Very bad.