Monday, December 15, 2008

Victory!

Not only did I manage to mail the scarves in, but I finished the socks! (I may have called them the Socks of Doom as I was kitchenering the last toe, but in fact they've quite nice).

I've already started another pair of basic socks (actually, I started them on Saturday night, at Peaceful Knitter's house), and have reached a decision point on the baby sweater for Schaefer Yarns. It's still resisting photography (although Kevin has suggested several times that Moppet might like to model it... and she thinks he's the nice one, who looks out for her and doesn't to cut her nails/claws or trim her fur... if only she knew!), but imagine the lower body of a bottom-up sweater, dark semi-solid blue, with a big cable panel in the center of the front and moss stitch with smaller cables the rest of the way around.

Got it? Ok.

I was originally going to split for the sleeves and work the upper body flat, making those overlapping shoulders that accommodate gigantic baby heads (you know the ones-- the kind that are often on baby t-shirts and onsies), then knit the sleeves down from the shoulders. Then I thought maybe I would knit the sleeves from the cuff up, and have a raglan yoke--but one that buttons along one of the raglan decrease lines, because of the gigantic head situation. Or maybe regular set-in sleeves, but with buttons on one shoulder?

And now I can't decide.

To distract myself, I'm starting to think about travel knitting. Coming up in the next month, there's the annual tour d'everywhere (CT, NY, PA, OH, WV, VA, NC, possibly SC if we follow the wacky GPS directions, VA again, DC, MD, DE or PA again, NJ, NY... ). But this time, we're going to Israel and Egypt (!!) before coming all the way home.

About that.. it looks like I'll be doing some consulting (for my previous employer) in Israel in January, and that to fit everything in, I'll be leaving at the end of December, right on the tail end of our holiday travels. Kevin's coming too, and hopefully we'll also get to visit Egypt, because I was obsessed with ancient Egypt when I was in middle school. The good news is that I don't think there will be any sinking hovercraft this time around, the bad news is that none of the details are settled yet... so naturally, I've been amusing myself while working out by contemplating just how much sock yarn I'll need for 3-4 days of driving, 2 transatlantic flights (a coworker reports that she's brought knitting needles on American planes to and from Tel Aviv, so I'm going to think positively), and 2 weeks' worth of knitting while waiting/before going to bed/after biking all day (because we're tying to coordinate a bunch of biking in Israel).

So far, my best guess is: a lot.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You may just need an entire piece of luggage devoted to yarn. Have you looked at the availability of Israeli yarn? Is there such a thing?! Anyway, sounds like a great trip!

Baby Beth said...

OMG! I wanna go to Israel with you! And security going to Israel is a lot different than going anywhere else. They know knitting needles aren't SUPER-deadly. They totally profile on those flights. You'll be fine.

Anna said...

Hope your travel plans work out alright and that you get to go to Egypt this time around. :)

Anonymous said...

Sounds wonderful. I agree that you'll be safe with your needles, but if you wanted extra insurance, pick up some of those Pony Pearl plastic DPN's. I'm sure they come in sock sizes, and they are very obviously plastic.

Have a terrific trip! Take lots of pictures! Blog from your cell phone!