Friends, I need your help! While I should be counting back issues and popping open that tent to clean off the dust from last year (so dusty it was, please let it not be this weekend!), instead I am focusing on THE most important packing decision I have to make for the coming week away at the fair. And I'm having no luck. In fact, I'm only coming up with more options the more time I have.
Tell me - what knitting to bring?
First up, we have my Mountain High, in my own worsted weight yarn. I'm loving knitting this one and really am so close to the end, eager to start wearing it. But here's the trouble, I'm most definitely at the part(s) where I need to pay attention to the pattern, plus there's the picking up of the sleeves and other such cumbersome activity that might not be suitable for booth knitting, where I knit in fits and starts and am frequently distracted or interrupted. (How dare anyone interrupt my knitting time! I jest. Really. Please interrupt! Come say hello!)
Of course, most exciting is the next knit, always the one yet to be cast on for. This will be Gidday, for Annabel, in my own yarn with a flash of color from the dyed wool I've been making this summer. It is again a pattern, but not a complicated one and I think I could swing it for sure with that easy starting garter yoke. But then there's the trouble of not having a gauge yet, nor having wound any of this yarn into cakes yet, nor having even decided on the final color. Oatmeal and rusty orange? Oatmeal and yellow and green? Oatmeal and all three? I'm not sure I'm ready for this kind of commitment yet. It feels rushed.
I could crank out these mittens. But while I love my grandmother and my aunt something fierce, let's face it - I'm not going to love knitting with this yarn, particularly when surrounded by so much wooly goodness at the fair. I think it's best saved for an engrossing movie, this project. Yes? Though I could get them done easily in the weekend and that would be lovely...
Then there's always the option of picking up any one of these 'unfinished project' bags (there are more, I'm too embarrassed to show you all of them) and finishing something that's been lingering for a good long while. That's always such a satisfying feeling. But also, a bit daunting to dive back into sometimes - I mean, there's a reason (for each one) that they were put down (and forgotten about) all that time ago.
And then there's this. Not something I would usually consider bringing with me, but it does fit the bill of being something I can do while talking (garter stitch! and more of it!). AND, the forecast looks a bit chilly this weekend so this could definitely double as a blanket while I'm knitting it which sounds incredibly cozy. But, it's, um, huge (it is a blanket, after all), and might it be a bit antisocial to be snuggled under a blanket in my Taproot booth? This introvert can't tell for certain but is thinking perhaps yes. That isn't exactly approachable or open to new conversation. Hmn. I mean you all might understand, but perhaps not a stranger.
And round and round I go! Further from a decision each time I consider another option! I could just grab a quick couple of oddball skeins and get some simple hats or mitts done. That could work. I could bring it all (and totally would, in a heartbeat, if I had an extra square inch in my super-packed rental van). OR...I could throw all caution to the wind, grab my bag of needles, and wait until I get to the fair to be inspired by some yarn I see and buy there, and a project that just 'comes' to me. That's pretty risky behavior, I know. But on yarn, I'm willing to take some chances.
I really should count those back issues....