Crafty fucktard: lace edition part 1 (because I have a feeling there will be many many parts)

If Gabby was Matilda's never-ending carnival of WHAT the SHIT is THIS, then Mystery Stole 3 will be my Waterloo. This will be the project by which all future projects are measured (I'd give that sweater in this season's Rowan Magazine a 1 MS3 for difficulty but 3 MS3s for sheer what the fuck value.). Unlike Gabby, which at least had the advantage of built in cameraderie and commiseration from myself and Angeltiger, MS3 has the built in cameraderie, commiseration, and sheer unending email onslaught of several thousand participants, all of whom save one (kiss kiss, Ana, and here's the gin and tonics) seem to:

1. Be doing this in a pale pretty sweet colorway
2. Knit at the speed of lightning
3. Channel the perky at any hour of the day or night.

Gentle readers, let us contrast this with the native knitting state of the wench:

1. Be doing this in the darkest colorway possible. In this case, Habu superfine merino in steel grey. Please note the hardcooooore use of the word 'steel' in the color, yo. This project also involves beading (upping the twee factor by approximately a factor of pi), and whereas others were debating the merits of swarvoski crystals or rose quartz, I opted for 2 different beads- one for edge beading, one for internal. The internal ones are Toho matte raku blue iris/grey triangles not cubes and the external ones are matte metallic dark blue hex nut shaped. That's right. I'm making a steel grey lace shall with grey and matte metallic hexagonal beads. It'll be goth industrial lace. Trent Reznor, Robert Smith, and Morrisey walk into a yarn shop for a stitch n bitch. The comedy just writes itself.
2. Has absolutely no familiarity with charts, and so is knitting at a snail's pace and cursing at a clip which would make Samuel L. Jackson reverentially wipe away a tear.
3. Never perky. Ever. I am the woman Matilda got an Oscar the Grouch magnet which states "Fuck y'all. Fuck alla y'all."

The first clue was released last Friday. I have already had to recast on six times, due to multiple fuckups, yarn breakage, a regrettable knitting-flying-right-off-the-needles incident, and finally a decision that the size needle I was working on- despite looking ok on the gauge swatch- really wasn't working with the pattern. Ana has mailed me a new lace needle in the right size.

Please note that the day after she mailed it, Royal Mail in the UK went on strike.

It's going to be a long, long summer.