Bamboo and Boredom

So I have been knitting:

That would be Sahara in South West Trading Company Bamboo. I was quite a bit off with the gauge so I’m basically knitting a larger size with a smaller gauge and crossing my fingers. I did some math and I’m going for a little less ease than the 3” the pattern calls for.

So the way this is knit is you do a provisional cast on, knit down the back, and then pick up your provisional cast on and knit down the front until under the armpit where you join the front and back together. Well on my flight out of Cleveland I made a horrible mistake: I only brought this with me to knit, and I didn’t prepare for the possibility that I would finish knitting the back. Meaning I didn’t pack any extra needles, stitcholders, etc. that I would need to start knitting the front.

Right. So of course my flight got delayed. On the runway. For 2 hours. I finished up the back down to the armpit before we even took off. I had only the only the skymall to amuse me and a 3 hour flight ahead… So I improvised...

I used the cotton that I had from the provisional cast on and gnawed off (using the “sharpest” thing I could find - my seatbelt buckle) as much as I could w/o undoing the cast on edge. From there I threaded it through the live stitches. Without a tapestry needle. That was fun.

Then I undid the cast on back on to my now empty Denise needles… luckily I found a safety pin in the bottom of my purse to use as a stitch holder… there’s a lot of stitches crammed on a little safety pin but it totally worked.

Never underestimate the resourcefulness of a bored knitter.

So anyways I love the feel of this yarn and I love the color but one critical thing I did not know about bamboo - It tangles very, very easily. Somehow after I got off the plane I had a pretty, red pile of knots instead of a workable skein. Which would be why I haven’t touched it since then. Monday night I finally sucked it up and untangled the whole mess….

I can’t wait to get back to knitting this!