One thing I have to sort out in advance are my knitting projects. Ideally, I'm going to finish my two Christmas knitting projects before I leave, which means I'll have a week and a half with buckets of glorious knitting time on new projects! This kind of treat deserves serious deliberation.
Trip knitting will for sure be two projects. They have to be small enough to pack and not take up a ton of space in my bag, yet take long enough to knit that the 7 hours on the plane, numerous drives, evenings relaxing, and sitting on the golf cart for the day while the rest of the family golfs will all be filled.
I don't want to have to bring any books along- it has to be portable, easy to put down and pick up, and keep my attention while allowing me to participate in whats going on around me.
This takes planning.
The first project is my "pay attention" project. This will be for the golf cart rides and a good chunk of the plane rides. I decided on the Narwhal mittens for my friend Brit.
The fair isle keeps me practicing before I go back to tackling my Dad's Dale of Norway sweater, and the picot edging is a fun (but welcome) change from the Latvian braid I did for the Toasty in Tofte mittens. I know Brit will really appreciate these, and since she's coming with on the trip, I know she'll really enjoy watching their creation.
My only dilemma is deciding whether or not I should line them. I'm thinking "yes", since that would cover the messy inside knitting and keep her hands warm in the sub-zero Minnesota temps when we're back home. I'll probably only bring the yarn to knit the outsides, but I'm thinking lining would be a good idea.
Other than that, I need a project that I can work on while chatting with people at the same time. Last year, I knit the Kleio shawl, which was big enough to keep me busy the whole time, yet small enough that it didn't take up a gargantuous amount of space in my carry-on. I need to find something similar. Honestly, I would love to take The Dude Sweater down with me to finish, but since the sweater is HUGE and the skeins of yarn are about the size of a dinner plate each, it's not feasibly a good travel project. :)
I love the Fjordland hat from the latest Pom Pom Quarterly. It's got some fantastic colorwork sections, but they're repetitive and would require very little effort to concentrate on my part.
It's something that I would love to both knit and wear, which can sometimes be hard to pair together. I haven't knit myself something in so long that a project like this would be fun.
Another thought was a simple pair of mittens for myself. I already have yarn for a pair of striped mittens, so that's definitely a contender!
There's no real pattern to worry about, so it would be mindless knitting in circles, which is a perfect travel knit. Part of me doesn't want to bring two pairs of mittens to knit, but another part of me says "I'll make what I want to make!"
Hard to argue with that logic.
I suppose I can't bring three projects, can I? That would probably be too much. :)
...right?
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