Coming for a walk?

One thing I love about spring is that, given enough sun and not so much wind, I can get back to knitting outside.  Lately I've been on public transit at least one day a week - which involves at least an hour in each direction spent either riding the bus or subway, or waiting to be - so that is a lot of portable knitting time.

About that much, in two days, if you want to get picky.

The great thing about the Sock Sweater (a thing I understand drives most people loopy) is that there are about 14" of straight knitting before I get anywhere interesting.  I am working about 4000 stitches at a stretch before I even need to think about what I put the markers in for.

All that straight knitting on one tidy circular needle means this sweater is totally walkable. On breathless arrival at the bus stop I can pull it out of my bag, the yarn feeding from a gap in the opening, and commence knitting, pause briefly to board the bus and find a seat, and keep on going through the shift to the subway and on to my final destination because - have you noticed? - you almost never get transit straight to the door of the place you want to be.  Coming home I invariably catch the short turn bus and have to walk the last five minutes to my door, which doesn't bother me when I can knit all the way.

I'm going to enjoy it while I can because all that transit time is turning this body piece into lap knitting, unless I can fashion some sort of not totally geeky loop that shifts the weight to the strap of my bag.  Still, there are always the sleeves.  And how great is it to get even this much of the boring knitting out of the way while in situations that would be deadly dull without it?

The other potentially crazymakingness of this sweater was the cast on.  It's made of sock yarn, so there are a zillion stitches, and I can tear my hair out over 100 of them with simpler projects when I misjudge the length I need at the start (yet I still love the longtail cast on.)  TECHknitter to the rescue! with her very clever solution to the problem.

This is how it looks when it's done - two extra strands to work in at the end, and I don't grudge them a bit.

Have a great weekend, whether you're knitting inside or out, walking or snugged up on the sofa! and I'll see you on Monday with something I can hardly wait to show you.