Conspiracy

Warning - the following story has nothing to do with knitting, beyond the fact that it resulted in slightly more time for me to knit.

My daughter is in league with the TTC. And possibly also Mother Nature. This must be true.

This morning, my lovely and talented child went on a completely uncharacteristic breakfast strike. Ultimately, we were able to get her interested in her cereal again, but not before she'd wasted 5-10 minutes being cranky and saying no to food. Unsurprisingly, we therefore left the house 5-10 minutes later than we should have.

Fast forward to the first leg of my subway journey. On the way to the second last stop, the train stops. There are signal problems up ahead. We finally make it to the second last stop - ONLY ONE STOP FROM WHEN I HAVE TO GET OFF - only to be told that we all have to get off the train, it's going back the other way. A few minutes later, the announcement comes on that the signal problems are so bad that they've set up a shuttle bus service across the entire subway line for the duration of the delay.

(Needless to say, none of this would have been a problem if we'd left the house 5-10 minutes earlier - I would have instead sailed right to the end of the line before the signal problems ever happened. Hence my belief in a conspiracy.)

Now, I don't know if you've ever had the joy (not) of trying to get on a shuttle bus designed to take up the slack while the subway isn't working. I will only say that there isn't so much a line of people to get on these buses as there is a throng of humanity. It was insane. Do I need to add that it is frickin' freezing out today? So I bypassed the whole thing and got on a bus going south (instead of west). It took me way longer than the southbound subway would, but since I had been thwarted ruthlessly in my attempts to get myself westbound to a station on the southbound subway line, I wasn't complaining. The traffic was light and the bus was warm. I knitted.

And that was my crappy morning.

Cape Cod sweater for MIL

Winding up four skeins last night took way longer than I thought. What I hadn't counted on was that it takes a while to wind a substantially-sized skein when the yarn is super-thin. So I barely had enough time left over last night to swatch. But swatch I did. I got pretty good row gauge, but my stitch gauge was off. Augh! What is it with Alice Starmore and her wacky tensions? I have decided to ignore the gauge problem and forge ahead. (Ominous chord sounds in the background.) This morning I cast on 352 stitches for the body and worked the majority of the first row. It ain't much, but it's a start.

Spanish Knight sweater for Mom

Behold the latest snapshot of the progress: