What’s got over 6500 members around the world, is free to join, and has everyone knitting lace? Why, it’s Mystery Stole 3, of course!
Melanie, knit designer and hostess of the PinkLemonTwist blog, is in her third year of hosting her lace stole knit along, and this year, it is bigger than ever. With the word out and a few well-known knitters and bloggers signed up, membership in this group exploded in the last week of sign-ups in the end of June.
I figured I’d better see what the fuss was about.
The idea is simple, yet so clever. Melanie has labored and created a pattern for a knitted lace stole. The pattern and theme are kept secret, but she gives hints at the outset to help each knitter make decisions about what yarn (and in this year’s case, also optional beads) to use. Each week over the summer, she gives out one “clue” (so far, each week’s clue has been 50 rows of lace knitting) to knit in consecutive order. At the end of the cumulative weeks, everyone will have a knitted lace stole (and will know what the pattern and theme is!).
Melanie has also set up and is moderating a Yahoo! Group as a way of communicating to over 6500 knitters around the world, distributing the clues, and enabling discussion amongst the knitters who wish to participate. As is continuing to be an prominent feature of the over-all knitting community (in her latest book, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off: The Yarn Harlot’s Guide to the Land of Knitting, the Yarn Harlot, who is also a member of MS3, gives a humorous glance into what characterizes this thing called a "knitting community"), the members of this KAL are eager and quick to assist anyone with questions or difficulties.
So, you may be wondering how my Mystery Stole 3 is coming along... I’m consistently a week behind on the clues, but am enjoying knitting every row. While it helps to have a bit of lace knitting knowledge under your belt to participate, there seem to be a lot of new lace knitters in the group – this would be to be a great way to find your lace groove if you have been daunted by trying a large lace project on your own. Just remember one word (ok, two, really): Life Line.
And if you’ve missed out on the fun this summer, plans are already underway for Mystery Stole 4 to take place late next summer.
No comments:
Post a Comment