Sabotaging Myself?

I actually can think of a number of other things to title this post.  "What Was I Thinking?" would be one.  "Why Do I Do These Things To Myself?" was another.  "Insanity" was yet another.  All would have been appropriate, they just wouldn't all fit in the title box together.

I've joined another Mystery Knit-along.  Let's review my  history with MKALs, shall we?  In the gaps in last year's blogging, I failed to mention that I have fallen for been suckered into joined several such things.

Failure #1 -
About this time last year I decided to try Ysolda's first MKAL, the Follow Your Arrow Shawl.  That didn't end well.  Keeping up was not a problem.  I tried to make sure I would like the ultimate result by waiting for others to post spoilers of the clues so I could choose the one I liked best.  I even added it to my Ravelry projects. No go.  I think I made it through clue 3. Maybe clue 4.  Then I faced the music, 'fessed up, and admitted I hated it.  It was a sad waste of some fabulous (and now discontinued) fingering weight yarn.  I listed it as frogged on Ravelry, but it is in fact, still on the needles.  I'm toying with the idea of binding it off and calling it a scarf.  Once I've lost all my other scarves, I'll probably (maybe?) be glad to have it.

Failure #2-
It took me until this past Fall before I let myself try another.  This one was Kaffe Fassett's for Rowan Yarns.  My arguments to join were much the same as the ones I used to talk myself into Follow Your Arrow, starting with how much I liked and admired the work of the designer involved.  Plus, this was Rowan.  It was a blanket and I love knitting blankets.  The knitting here was simple, a series of striped squares knit on the bias, because the focus would be on how to use color and I am weak at combining colors.  I didn't even pretend I would keep up this time, but figured I would be so glad to have the pattern and the notes and did I mention that Rowan had Kaffe do a series of YouTube videos on the project? The problems started when people stared posting photos of their squares in various combinations.  They all made my eyes hurt.  When we got to the final clue and it confirmed that the most painful possible combinations were the ones we were supposed to use I lost it. They were like optical illusions, or Pop Art where all the lines fly off in different directions and nothing makes any sense.  I like my blankets to make sense.  So now I have a huge collection of Rowan Pure Wool Worsted Super-wash, in a lot of colors I will never use again. 

Failure #3-
I only got as far as buying the pattern this time. Well, that and the yarn (Malabrigo Mechas in Pocion).

Had I read the notes on the group MKAL page, I would have known the project was a poncho and I do not do ponchos.  But it was, again, a designer I really like (Laura Aylor, she of Lizard Ridge Blanket and Faberge Shawl fame)(I begin to see a pattern here) and it was the end of the year and the end of the year had been pretty sucky, so when offered a MKAL  called "Just For You" what was I supposed to do?

Which bring us up to this year, and what have I gone and done?  Signed up for Ysolda's Follow Your Arrow 2 Mystery Knit-along. Only the first clue has been released, and I've finished it already.  But, and here's a big but, much as I like the short-row shaping, this clue calls for a picot edge.  Have I ever mentioned how much I despise picot edges?  It's a chicken and egg thing.  Do I hate them because I'm bad at them, or am I bad at them because I really, really, really hate them? 

Why did this take me by surprise?  What did I think it was going to be when I had to bind off two stitches at the start of every row?  Or when the designer stated that the garter tab would be 118 rows long and I would have 59 "points" when I had finished it?

Isn't one of the definitions of insanity to do the same thing over and over, expecting a different outcome?