The Dark Side in Five Easy Steps

1. This morning I was happily reading the blogs that I follow, and both Kym and Donna posted about different Mystery KALs. So far, I have never knit a mystery anything and vowed to never knit a mystery anything in the future, but...

2. They both echoed my feelings about Mystery KALs, and then wrote quite convincingly about how and why they are now participating! Since they so kindly provided links to patterns and yarns, I had to to look at them. I vaguely remember promising myself that I wouldn't buy more yarn unless it was absolutely positively necessary, but a perusal of my recently-organized stash revealed plenty of yarn that would work.

3. I paused in my MKAL considerations to check email and it seemed the Goodreads Quote of the Day was also urging me to join:
Never say 'no' to adventures. Always say 'yes,' otherwise you'll lead a very dull life. 
Thanks, Ian Fleming! 

4. The pattern I chose is very reasonably priced, so it would just be silly not to buy what sounds like a lovely scarf/shawl that I will most likely use. If I don't like the end result, I have plenty of potential recipients.

5. After purchasing the pattern and making sure I had enough yarn, I decided it would provide more motivation for me to actually knit the project if I joined the Fans of Through the Loops group and created a Ravelry project page.

So here I am, having slid down the MKAL slope to the Dark Side. I'm calling this a Mystery KAL Lite, as I'm traveling on vacation when the first two clues are released and I'm not sure how much knitting time I'll actually have. I'll try my first MKAL without too much pressure so maybe I'll actually do another one someday. That's how we do things on the Dark Side!