Downton Abbey's Back

...and of course it has inspired knitalongs. When I read about the one sponsored by Jimmy Beans Wool, I knew I had to do it. Here's the explanation from the Ravelry listing for the Downton Abbey Mystery KAL 2014:

Starting with merely a basic shawl pattern, this truly mysterious KAL is based on the film drinking games of our college years with a “Choose your own Adventure” sort of twist. The difference is that in this case we’re taking a more productive approach: instead of drinking when something happens on Season 4 of Downton Abbey, we’re knitting a specific stitch pattern into our shawl! -On the morning before each episode airs on PBS, you will receive a set of directions for that evening’s episode.

-There will be 2 options specified in the directions: one for beginners and one for intermediate knitters.
-Your directions could be something along the lines of: “When Bates sneezes, knit 4 rows of seed stitch.” (Or something like that!)
-The rules are designed so that rarer events require more complicated or laborious stitch patterns.
-For those of you that didn’t or couldn’t watch, we’ll release the “stitch pattern key” to the episode the day after the show airs.

All you need to play is 500 yards of DK weight yarn. I've got a big old skein of polwarth/silk from Indigodragonfly which should be perfect. The only tricky part will be watching what's going on. I have the tv on a lot but my attention's nearly always on my knitting.