The Little Knittin' Kitten

Travel Knitting

Well, my multiple weddings and receptions are finally behind me. As much as I enjoyed everything, I am exceedingly glad to be finished "getting married" so that I can now enjoy "being married". But I'm not entirely done yet; we've still got the honeymoon coming up. We're leaving for Japan on Friday and I have to make some tough decisions fast. The toughest decision, of course, is what knitting to pack.

I've been working away at socks, as planned, for the last few weeks, but I've only managed to finish that one pair of Spring Forward socks from Knitty; I grafted the toes on the subway this morning. I got a few more rows in on Arwen this last week, but it's painfully clear that I will not have it finished in time to wear it in Japan. I may take it as a project to work on, if I can get over my aversion to doing finishing work while travelling (not to mention my fear of not bringing enough yarn to finish it, or bringing too much and having to carry it around, taking up room that could be used to buy new yarn).

I was planning to start another pair of socks to work on, since socks make good travel knitting, but a voice in the back of my head has been whispering "a small sweater would be so nice to knit on trains". I contemplated Hey Teach! but the moment passed; it is still in my Ravelry queue, but I just don't think it's right for this trip. Then, while catching up on the Yarn Harlot blog from this weekend, I noticed that she had linked to the February Lady sweater and I think I'm a smitten as she is. For some reason I've never been that keen on the February Baby sweater, although it is in my queue as something that looks like it would be a good pattern to knock off if I ever needed a baby sweater toute suite. But as a grown-up sweater, and with the shaping the designer has added to it, I find it very fetching.

As a top-down raglan, it would be easier to travel with than Arwen, which is currently in 3 parts stored together in the clear plastic packaging that my bed linen came in (you know, the kind with the zipper? They make excellent knitting project holders!). Knitting something that's completely in one piece would give me the satisfaction (not to mention KIP wow factor) of knitting a full sweater, without the seaming or keeping track of pieces that Arwen would require. Wince we're backpacking, this is important, as we don't have the structure of suitcases to keep things organized: just one big chasm of a bag to stuff clothes into between destinations.

Of course, I'll still pack some sock yarn and a pattern, and I need to pick up some bamboo circs in case I feel like working on them on the plane, but I think I've found my travel project. I just need to choose yarn and swatch sometime between now and Friday. I'm still trying valiantly to knit from stash (I say "valiantly" because I noticed on the way home from work the other day that Knit Boutique is having a sale), so I'm going to see if I have anything that would be good for this. However, I'm not averse to picking up some Dream in Colour at Lettuce Knit if it comes to it. :)

Until next we knit!

=^_^=

posted @ 10:35 a.m.