Killing Gnats and Making Friend...ship bracelets

Strep throat found me last week and put me out of commission for a few days.  I went home to my parents house and left a giant pile of dishes in the sink because I was too sick to stand up and wash them.  Unfortunately I came back to a big gnat infestation in my kitchen.  I'm obsessed with killing them now.  I washed and disinfected the garbage can, the floor and the counter tops. I put out a bowl of vinager to catch them but so far only one stupid fly flew into the vinager.  The others are just mocking me.  This will drive me crazy all week.

Anyway, did you know friendship bracelets are making a comeback? Some of the friendship bracelets are selling at department stores for $100-400 dollars! It's crazy! I brought back my embroidery floss I left at my parents house and decided to try to make the bracelets again.  It took a few tries to get the knots down...I was a little rusty but eventually I got back in the groove. I made a reverse band in some patriotic colors. It was difficult to get a picture of it because i don't have a macro lens on my camera but here's my attempt at pictures of the bracelets:

I wish the pictures of the close up of the pattern came out but my camera would not focus that close.  Now that I've mastered the simple patterns, I'm going to try (once again) the advanced patterns. I've tried several times without much luck. 20th time's a charm?