I'm On the Road Again

Tomorrow we drive about two and a half hours to visit over night with Spousal Unit's parents before flying back up to Seattle for a couple of days. We'll fly back down here on Sunday. So, once again, I need to decide what to take with me in the way of knitting projects on a short trip.

I've finished less than half of the second sleeve for my Jaeger Biscuit cardigan , so that goes. Maybe when I get back I'll be ready to block the pieces and knit on button bands.

Though the flights will only last a couple of hours, we also have airport waits, shuttle rides, and some free time around the events we're going back for. I optimistically expect to get the sleeve done before the return flight.

I have two more small things to take along. First, I'll wind the red and taupe hand-dyed skein skein into two balls to double strand a beanie for a college-aged nephew about to have surgery to remove a rod from his leg. (Note - I still need to ask his mother how big his head is.)

The blue Jamieson Shetland will make a swatch for a heavy shawl. I knit one of these in a chunky weight several years ago as about my third project when I restarted knitting. The stitch pattern, basket weave with a seed stitch infill, came from Barbara Walker's Learn to Knit Afghan book. I used the reverse side of a bell ruffle so the increases and decreases wouldn't show.

I want to develop versions in two lighter weights and a scarf. When I start swatching I'll post some photos of the original shawl.

I guess I'd better pack a large SASE, too, since I won't have any checked luggage. Knitting needle don't usually cause any problems nowdays, but better to have a back-up plan.

I'll post on knitting back backwards tomorrow before I leave. I have the photos ready - just need to find a reference or two in EZ.

Comments

[RobinH]

Is the knitted piece at the back of the picture a swatch from the blue-gray yarn? The color seems quite different.

And a note on doubling yarn- I find it handy to do double-wound balls center-out. unwind the yarn. Match the two ends, slide the doubled length through your hands until you find the center, and then wind the doubled yarn from the center out to the ends. This is actually not nearly as annoying as it sounds (so long as the yarn is not excessively tacky).

I can do a full skein in about 15 minutes, and the benefit is that instead of managing two balls of yarn, you only have to have one. You don't have to cut the skein, and when you knit to the center, you don't have any mismatch in the ends. It's especially nice when I'm doing pairs of things with doubled yarn- the difference between 4 balls of yarn and two is significant. (Note that rewinding double balls back to single is actually quite a bit more irritating.)