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Travel Knitting: What to do?!

I’m heading home to my parents’ house for a long weekend tomorrow, and I kind of just realized that I’ll be on a plane for about 8 hours altogether (it’s been an adventurous week). Now, I have plenty of projects on the needles to knit while on a plane, but let’s look at the facts:

  • The Loki Scarf is coming along nicely, but it involves intarsia and stranded knitting and four balls of yarn dangling from the project. Now imagine trying to knit that on an airplane. Exactly. This project is definitely coming with me (I’m having a separate crisis about how much yarn to wind off the cones), but I don’t think it’s very good for on-the-plane knitting.
  • My Pontos cardigan is also zipping along, being that it’s bulky and lace knitting and I’ve got the sleeves joined and everything. But it’s bulky and the sleeves are joined, making it a kind of chunky project to take on a plane. I mean, I have to wrestle it into the little child-sized duffle bag I’ve been using to carry it. It takes up too much room to fit in a carry-on, and I would feel a little ridiculous paying to check a bag so I can take this project with me. This does mean it won’t be finished by closing ceremonies, but that’s okay. It’s not far off.

    Untitled

  • Folded has been sitting in time out while I was working on the scarf and Pontos, and is a smaller project (fingering weight yarn takes up less space than bulky yarn). So it is a contender for on-the-plane knitting.

But then there’s a little bit of starteritis threatening to set in. “Maybe I should start a pair of socks, I haven’t knit socks in a while, and my queue is full of sock patterns with yarns matched up.”


Bex by Cookie A

“Or maybe a shawl! I’ve got a few options there.” (see also: Holden Shawlette.)


Age of Brass and Steam, photo by Sketchbook

“Maybe I’ll crochet something! I haven’t crocheted in a while.”


Alpine Frost Scarf

…though I am extremely, stupidly, thinking about casting on another pullover. It’s lace weight! On big needles!


Cecilia, photo by Oby

…don’t look at me like that.

19 Comments

  1. You’re going to go socks. Admit it! Hahah (It would be my choice, too.)

    • threadpanda threadpanda

      Cecilia is really, really calling to me though. (Watch me wind the yarn and bring patterns for both, oi.)

  2. I vote socks, too! They’re the easiest on planes.

    • threadpanda threadpanda

      They really are! I’d just have to decide which of the 100+ sock patterns would be easiest for my brain. I’m pretty sure I don’t have the energy for a Cookie pattern right now, but that was the first pattern I came across in my queue.

  3. For space, I also vote socks, or maybe crochet.

    • threadpanda threadpanda

      The problem for me, with crocheting on planes, is that I have to pay attention to crochet and I always get distracted by stuff on planes. But we will see!

  4. lol I had that issue the other day when we had the impromptu roadtrip. I had several projects, but none that would be good to take on a long drive. Went a bit buggo trying to figure out what to take. I ended up taking a shawl with the yarn I got from the swap.

    I’d say socks. I would have done that myself, if I’d had the needles (all the ones I want to make are on smaller size needles than I own),

    • also, you say it’s lace, but the rav-page claims worsted? How’s that work?

      • threadpanda threadpanda

        The Rav page is wrong. If you click on the yarn used in the pattern (you can get there from the pattern page) it clearly says it’s a lace weight yarn. The halo created by the mohair would add some space when you’re doing WPI, but it is most definitely not a worsted-weight yarn.

        • gotcha. Was a bit confused lol

    • threadpanda threadpanda

      I’m having a contrary moment where everyone is saying “socks” and my brain is going “…NO.” Don’t ask me why, sometimes it’s all “I DO WHAT I WANT.” Part of it is probably that I like the idea of bigger needles, since the scarf is knit on size 2s and I’m kind of over them. I think I mentioned somewhere else that I will likely wind yarn for both a pair of socks and the pullover and figure it out as I go.

      • that’s always a good idea 😉 Contingency plan 😉

  5. caityrosey caityrosey

    Love that pullover. Gorgeous.

    • threadpanda threadpanda

      I’ve lusted after it ever since I first saw it, and now it will be MINE! muahahahaha. ahem. sorry.

      • caityrosey caityrosey

        I’d be very interested to read about your experience making it, since the notes on Ravelry indicate that it has a high level of trickiness.

        • threadpanda threadpanda

          I’m about 20 rows in, but I was knitting that on a plane while watching Avengers (yay complimentary movies because my flight was delayed an hour) and haven’t run into any problems yet. The lace isn’t charted, which is kind of annoying, but it’s worked in fairly simple repeats, so I was just able to memorize each little repeat as I went.

  6. Socks are always a great travel knit…but I also vote for Folded. Fingering weight yarn in mindless stockinette? I’m so there!

    PS: I LOVE your Care Bears bag!!!

    • threadpanda threadpanda

      It’s not so mindless right now because I’ve got to count rows for the increases, AND I would have had to carry the sleeves with me (since I forgot how to count and have a longish torso with a highish waist, my waist shaping is happening much closer to the sleeve and body join than the pattern calls for). So it would have taken up much more room than this little lace pullover. BUT I WILL HAVE IT FINISHED BY THE END OF SEPTEMBER AT THE ABSOLUTE LATEST SO HELP ME KNITTING GODS.

  7. Last time I was on a plane I crocheted potholders, but I generally have a pair of socks on the DPNs in my purse as well. I have long since learned the lunacy of traveling with lace – if you decide on that, make sure you use lots and lots of lifelines!

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