MS3 Update

...or what I love about the knitting community.

Well, let's start with MS3. Clue 1 is still not complete, although I'm making progress - row 89 is complete. Photos to follow. (Oh, remember that photo I posted the other day? Did I mention I frogged that whole thing and started over?)

But what I'm really enjoying is the community aspect of this whole thing. For instance:

--fairly new friend Ellen and I are getting to know each other better as we slog through this pattern in an online dialogue. When I get an email from her I know I'm going to laugh, even if she's crying on the other end. And I'm betting the reverse is true. I feel like we're dragging each other through Clue 1. (To Ellen's credit, she's using beads which probably doubles the work. It's all I can do to knit the lace.)

--I'm reading blogs by other folks here in Hotlanta who are also doing MS3. I don't know them, although I found someone today that I think works at one of the local shops. I'm going there on Friday with a friend and will try to meet her then. But it cracks me up that all these folks around me are doing the same thing I am and I don't know it. It's like belonging to some cult and having a secret signal--you're driving on I-285 and suddenly the driver who just cut you off waves her MS3 and you are instant friends.

--But that incredible knitter Claudia is making it. I email back and forth with her during the day on guild business and missed knitting with her on Monday because I had to rush home to knit on MS3. If I'd gone, I guess I'd know that she's making it too. As it is, I know she is because I read the database online of the people who are making it and verified it on her blog. Amazing!

--The posts on the list, which could drive you bonkers if you let them just because there are SO many, are a hoot! 4,000 knitters, mostly women, many nationalities, several languages, all whining about why Row 41 isn't symmetrical. (Well, it is--the chart isn't.)

--And speaking of those posts, there are a lot of really compulsive people out there. Ok, I'm one of them, but I mean really compulsive. They're knitting 2 or 3, because they can. Way to make the rest of us look bad, you know?

So, this photo says it all...tells you everything you need to know about me:




First, the obsessively highlighted Chart B. Barely visible behind it to the right, the obsessively highlighted (completed) Chart A. In the back, the skein of sock yarn and pattern that I found in my stash the other day and am thinking might be the next pair I knit. Or not. At the bottom right, the ubiquitous Diet Pepsi cap--remnant of the Elixir of Life, without which there is no knitting and life's meaning seems pale indeed. All hail to the God Caffeine. On the left, laptop (front) and printer (rear). Not seen, the 3 skeins of Georgia handspun that I bought in a grab bag the other day at Knitch and which I'm coming to love the more I handle it. Now what does it want to be?