Knitting on the bus

I knit on the bus in the morning. Door-to-door, my morning commute takes about 40 minutes. I knit for about 30 of those minutes, or about until my bus gets off of Lake Shore Drive. (Unlike what the Wikipedia entry claims, I would argue that few locals abbreviate it to LSD. I call it Lake Shore Drive or the Drive. I won’t even do it in a text message. Who wants to tell someone “I’m on LSD”?)

I have a little system worked out that makes knitting easy. However, my system only works if I get an inside seat, which is one of the reasons I usually only knit in the morning. I generally have to spend my afternoon commute getting bumped in an outside seat, and it’s probably best for everyone involved that I’m not holding sharp pointy sticks when elbows and backbacks start flying.

I keep my project in a ziploc bag, which I smoosh between my inside leg and the side of the bus. I then open the smallest of the zippered pockets on my company backpack and shove my folded pattern inside (this also explains why half the patterns in my pattern binder look like someone chewed through them). I like to use mechanical pencils with clips, so I clip my pencil to the inside of the ziploc. Then off I go with my knitting, elbows locked so as not to disturb the person next to me. Why I bother with this I’m not sure, as most people are perfectly happy to overlap my body with their leg, arm, newspaper, or an endless cylce of each. (Clearly, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a more considerate person than most of my commuting non-knitting counterparts.)

My little system looks like this.

That’s sock number two of Gentleman’s Fancy Socks from Nancy Bush’s Knitting Vintage Socks: New Twists on Classic Patterns. The pattern called for casting on something like 90 stitches on microscopic needles. Okay, perhaps not so bad, but it was a laughable amount of stitches to me. Instead, I’m working them on size 2.5mm needles with 68 stitches cast on. That is working out quite well to accomodate Mel’s sturdy calves. The pattern is flying along and I’m about 75% finished. I’m using Trekking Hand Art, and it’s actually my first time knitting with a nylon-blend sock yarn. It’s not as soft to knit with as pure merino, but it’s working up very nicely and I think should make for fairly sturdy socks. Of course, I’m still going to wash them by hand. (Yes, you heard me right. I actually wash superwash by hand. Go ahead and laugh, I can take it.)

Elsewhere in my knitting, the Entangled Stitches gloves are not exactly on hold, but I have been having a hell of a time cabling using a DPN as a cable needle. A darning needle has proved to be a better tool, but still not perfect. So instead, I’m gleefully waiting on a custom order. I’ll discuss that more once it’s completed, but if all works well I will be the proud recipient of some spiffy hand-cast cable needles!