it's the overthought that counts

This is my Francis on Monday, hastily thrown on my handy dandy backdoor tree. I didn't think I'd have another chance to show her to you unfinished. When I shot this, I'd just realized I was heading down to DC by train on Tuesday. Five hours with my iPod ,knitting, and a trackside view of old industrial spaces, peering into the neighborhoods passing by? Love it. It is transcendent. I say this sincerely, do not read anything sarcastic into it.

Anyway, I had one sleeve almost done, one to go and a cowl. Which is no match for that much train knitting roundtrip. Plus, did I want to drag along a whole sweater when I already had major shleppage of cameras & lighting equipment to deal with? No. My brain began to whir. I'd need another project. Other than this piece of old unrelieved boredom , nothing else is on the needles. What next? I devoted a long tumble down the Ravelry rabbit hole to the question. An hour or two gets lost in the process.

Vestuary! I'm a vest loving type. Pre-blog I knit Grace, in this crazy # 163 color of Sisik , which I wear often. I find this Blue Sky pattern , plan to purchase and download it before departure and squeeze an extra 15 minutes in my crazy Monday to swing by a yarn store. It takes...almost an hour. Damn, wouldn't you know their inventory of worsted weight yarn is so low, I find nothing lovable and vest-worthy.

My so-called stash is mostly single leftover skeins. I find 850 yards of Ultra Alpaca yucca. I do not want to use it for the vest. I spend ..a while.. going through my books, magazines & back to Ravelry to see what options have I. Another hour gone.

I wind the alpaca. I decide to order and download the vest. I discover its not downloadable in the first place. why? and...now what to knit?

I am loving Francis , but this yarn creates a very different garment than the drapey alpaca modeled in the pattern. Light bulb goes on! I'll dedicate my 850 yards to another Francis, with a contrasting stockinette hem & cuff edge, in place of the seed stitch.

All this thinking & fussing left me with no time Monday to finish work or knit.
Tuesday, I grab the large almost finished Francis after all, as well as the wound alpaca. On board, my conscience gets the better of me and I spend the WHOLE TRIP DOWN working on my laptop, editing and processing the projects I neglected while thinking of what to knit on the train. I do not knit. I also work most of the way home and knit for, like, an hour. Painful, isn't it?

Union Station, Washington DC. (and it was 70 degrees out! yayy!)

What I was doing in DC was way more interesting than all this blather of what was in my brain the day before I left. I'll share tomorrow. Hint: red. and scarf.