The long weekend is over and everyone at Casa Wooldurham is back to work on a gloomy, rainy Tuesday morning.
Well, not quite all of us:
I spent part of the long weekend in the car for a short trip out of town. Since I was a passenger, this meant some time for knitting in the car. I envy those people who can work on complicated knit shawls while on the road. This is not possible for me because it generally makes me woozy. Instead I look for very specific kinds of projects to work on in the car so I don’t get a headache or start feeling sick. Here are some of the characteristics of my good car project:
- Circular needles, size 4+. In other words, socks on dpns are out.
- Lots of stockinette so I don’t have to watch what I am doing too much or count anything.
- A pattern I don’t really have to consult constantly.
- No charts.
As you can see, this could make for some pretty boring stuff!
This weekend I was lucky to have the stockinette portion of the Buttercup to work on, which was perfect. I was cooking along on this until I found a knot in the yarn. I had half a mind to just knit right over it, but this yarn being such smooth and slippery stuff, I figured that would be a problem the first time I tried to wear or wash this thing and the little ends wormed their way out of that knot. It was frustrating, but I decided the best thing would be to tink (knit backwards) back to the underarm, retie the yarn in a knot with longer ends, and carefully weave in the ends somehow. None of this surgery could be done in the car. Doh! I ended up spending most of the ride back with no knitting.
My all-time favorite car project was this:
The much raveled and blogged about Striped Scarf in Noro Kureyon. This project is super easy in 1×1 ribbing all the way. The color changes in the yarn keep it interesting the whole time. It is totally addictive to watch how the colors work together. If you have a long trip this summer, I highly recommend packing materials for one of these. If the price tag puts you off, try the closeouts section at Webs, where a few discontinued colors of Silk Garden and Yuzen can be found for half off at the moment. You might also try a similar cheaper yarn such as Patons SWS, which could create a similar effect (though I have not tried this).
What other projects would you recommend for knitting on the road?
