March 20, 2006 Travel Knitting Part 2

Today I leave for a 10 day trip escorting 15 Walker Art Center volunteer tour guides on a trip to Beijing and Shanghai. We'll be viewing both traditional sights and art, as well as experiencing the incredible explosion of contemporary visual art in China. When preparing for a trip like this, the whole knitting thing can bring up some quandries. The main one being, looking towards a 16 hour plane trip to get there, another 4 hour one in the middle, a 2 hour train ride, and a 16 hour plane ride home. That is alot of time for knitting. However...that's also a lot of yarn taking up alot of valuable suitcase real estate. I have two projects to work on, one is the men's sweater with the Andre motif- I'm hoping during the trip to get the back finished, and both sleeves done, that way when I get back I'll just have the front to do.

I also want to make a hat on the way over to wear while traipsing along the great wall. I thought a hat would be a good side project to take a break from the sweater, plus something I can probably complete within the span of a few hours. But oh, where to put the yarn.

Have you seen the commercials for Space Bags? They're these bags that you use your vaccuum on to suck out all the extra air, completely flatting what's inside. Behold, the low-tech space bags, the ziplock baggy. Throw a couple of balls of yarn or a knitting project inside one, press out the air, and voila a flat and handy little packet.