Okay, the Lambspun stole is blocked, but I have not yet had a chance to take photos. I had 2 plantar's warts (ewwww!) removed at the dermatologist yesterday and have been limping around ever since. The good news: This was a great excuse to lah-di-dah around today and knit.

I started MS3 knowing that the project was teetering on the edge of being completely beyond my kin. The only lace I have knit up until now has been simple pattern-repeat lace. Nothing at all artsy. But oh, how gorgeous those artsy stoles are! When I saw Melanie's designs I jumped in, imagining a new Beta version of myself, a stylish woman wearing an artsy, elegant beaded stole. Seeing as how a fair portion of my current wardrobe was purchased at Sam's or on e-bay, it would take a danged big shawl to disguise my mass market paint-stained capris, but a girl has to dream, right?

So I entered this project the same way I enter most projects: Like a rabid bat in a Lladro shop. Slap Dash would just about sum it up. Grabbed my needles and started flinging stitches here and there, all the while trying to keep an eye on The Sopranos. I got to about row 22 and realized I had forgotten to put in about a third of the edge stitch yarn overs. No problem, I tore it out and started again, promising to take more care with this effort.

This time I got to row 46 before I was hopelessly screwed up. Anybody who knits the way I do has to be a serviceable tinker, and I am. I tinked 3 rows, certain that this would set me right. Even then, my stitch count was 3 off, and no amount of counting, re-counting, examining, praying in tongues, or fudging would fix the 3-stitch mystery.

I turned off The Sopranos and leaned over the little scrap of lace, making rabbinical noises (hmmm! haaaa! mmmmm?) as I examined it. After about 15 minutes of this, I tore it out again. Clearly my usual methods were ineffective with this pattern. (A sane person would have figured this out at "go.")

So I pulled out the heavy artillery. Post-It notes. Magnetized rulers. Tape. Many, many hi-lighters. A row counter that hangs around my neck (nothing says "knit nerd" like a row counter that hangs around your neck). I ended up with a setup that looked like this:



Does it or does it not look like a schematic for an intake valve on the Space Shuttle? But this is the only other "knit mode" I possess: Complete Overkill. Systems within systems. I had a close call around row 90 or so when the center stitch started moving around (?!). This freaked me out until I realized that the pattern required it. But Complete Overkill Mode got me through to row 100. Can I say it was fun? Not necessarily. But it was a challenge met, and in the end I felt like I had kicked that Space Shuttle intake valve's butt. That's what really matters, isn't it?