Mindless Garter Stitch Knitting

My lap feels so empty without Gabgab. It's difficult to knit. But I really need the distraction. Everyone is away--work or other things. I decided to work from my home office today because I just don't feel like talking to strangers. But that means I am here alone.

I put away my work a little early and picked up the needles, looking for some distraction. And I found a partial skein of green kitchen cotton. I don't even remember what this partial skein is from, I so rarely knit with cotton. But it looked like there was enough to do one of the cotton back scrubbers I did this past Christmas, maybe a slightly shorter one.

So I cast on. Once you get past the buttonhole handles, it's just mindless garter stitch knitting. It was very easy to lose myself in the rhythm of knit stitches, one after another after another after another. I found myself knitting faster and faster, furiously cranking out garter stitch rows like a machine. Not stopping, not resting, not slowing. Just knit, knit, knit, knit.

I was so caught up in the process I didn't even notice when I ran out of green cotton. It was a total surprise to me. It was like that scene in Predator where Mac is just firing into the jungle.

Only, you know, instead of a thousand rounds from a mini-gun, I was firing off a thousand stitches of Emerald Sugar N Cream.

And then I looked down and saw that I didn't have nearly enough length on this thing to make a back scrubber. It was about half as long as it should be and didn't even have a second handle. I had a little crying breakdown.

But then, I got up and retrieved some yellow cotton. (I'm pretty sure I made M a tank top out of this yarn several years ago.) I used that invisible knot I told you about a few months ago and made a not very noticeable join.

And I started the garter stitch machine again. I knit until the lenght of the yellow matched the length of the green (to the handles). Then I added a buttonhole handle and bound off with a walnut-sized bit of yellow cotton leftover.

And now T has a kind-of ugly half and half green-yellow back scrubber. (But, you know. It's a back scrubber, so who cares?)

And I feel like that whole process might have been theraputic for me. (And maybe frightening for Achilles, Gracie, and Gengen to watch. "Humom, why are your eyes blazing and your hands moving so fast?")