Train Knitting

It's getting closer. 17 hours on an Amtrak train to Washington D.C. What was I thinking? I'm feeling the need to release endorphins. Something to keep me from snapping the noses off the various members of my family (they'd look so odd). Something to keep me from dreading the whole enterprise.

In recognition of the fact that misery loves company, and on the theory that train travel was worse in the 1800s, I tried reading a train novel from my youth, Abigail Goes West (out of print). Girl finds self and True Love when she travels by train from Pennsylvania to California during the California Gold Rush, complete with a derailment when the train hits a couple of cows. I sort of expected it to get me in the mood. I can't imagine why it didn't work.

I was feeling increasingly cranky. I could empty a room by walking into it. I didn't actually see my children flinch at the sound of my voice, but I could swear I saw their eyes widen afterward.

In this glutton for punishment state of mind, I decided to pull the final swatch for Sweet Indulgence out from the clean laundry. (Did I tell you that in my desperate attempt to avoid knitting math I knit one more on US 10.5 needles? No, I don't think so. Well, I did.) Just asking for it, right? Imagine my gobsmacked-ness when I found . . .

. . . I got gauge.

After 2 rows of k1 ribbing, Sweet Indulgence is 171 stitches in stockinette. For a long time. Enough, I think, to get me through. Then it gets a little interesting, but by that time we should be in Williamsburg (the final destination of this escapade expedition).

Where there's Knitting Sisters (it's a yarn store).