Oh Yeah, I Knit

I'm a knitter. That's where the "Woolens" part of the blog name comes from. And, like any obsessive knitter, it's taken me longer to pack the yarn for my trip than to pack my clothes and other belongings.

My goals for this year were to knit 12 shawls and 12 socks. I'm doing well on the shawls. 7 are completely finished. The remaining pieces are mostly started. In progress:

1. Quill This needs the border finished (only 1000 or so stitches in a round, so, you know, nothing major) and a lace edging applied. This is probably a month of work. For some insane reason, I opted for the 50" size.
2. Growing Flowers I have 350 grams of wool for this piece; I've used 150. The rounds are getting longer, and I'm losing motivation. Also, it's Estonian lace and has that really obnoxious "purl 3 into 7" stitch and those hurt my hands.
3. Margarethe Lace Shawl This is actually mostly done! It's just huge, and I'm doing it in all alpaca. The thing weighs a ton, so I'm ignoring it until it's cooler. I've already made one of these, and it lives at my desk at work. Best shawl ever.
4. Nuvem Thisistheshawlthateverends... Amazing, mindless knitting. I should pull this out for TV knitting in the evenings. It's too heavy for the subway now. And I'm making it out of madelinetosh, so it's yummy. I'm doing it in gray, so it should be versatile.

Writing it down now, that's better than I expected. I'll need one more shawl; I think a small lacy piece for my mother would be ideal.

When I took on the sock challenge, I said 12 socks OR 12 pairs would work. I've got 4 pairs, so 8 socks, done. I have 2 more pairs over halfway done. Next year's challenge is to knit 12 sweaters, but I badly need sweaters BEFORE January, and I have 3 on the needles now. I should probably leave it at a dozen socks for the year and finish off the sweaters in progress.

For this trip, I'm taking the two in progress pairs of socks, and the Nuvem. Plus some extra sock yarn for emergencies. (Yes, I need emergency sock yarn. Shaddup.) The Nuvem, one pair of socks, and some emergency yarn will go in our checked bag. The other socks and some spare yarn will go into my carry on.

I'm one of those people who does not cope well with flying, so I'm hoping our TSA overlords let me keep my needles for the 20 hour flight, since I'll be too panicked to sleep. 20 hours is enough time to make 3 sport weight socks at 7.75 stitches to the inch. (Per the TSA, knitting needles are allowed on planes, but it's all up to the discretion of security agents on-site. And I have no idea about the rules in other countries.)

In case they don't, I took advantage of Audible's sale to treat myself to a few new audiobooks. I got Isabella, She Wolf of France, Queen of England, by Alison Weir; The Honest Truth About Dishonesty, by Dan Ariely and The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, read by Anne Hathaway was free, so I picked that up too. I'm actually almost looking forward to hours of uninterrupted listening.