[Nfb-krafters-korner] Yarn Humor: Vacation Anyone?

[Susan Roe]

Writer, illustrator, and knitter Franklin Habit joins us for his monthly column featuring humor and insights into a yarncrafter's life.

It's July. My grand friends have gone to France, my less grand friends have gone to Michigan, my flat broke friends (the majority) have walked over to the
lake for the afternoon. There is a general desire to get out of here, get lost, leave it all behind.

All of it except yarn.

The friends who went to France packed passports and hiking gear. The friends who went to Michigan packed swimsuits and mosquito repellent. The friends over
at the lake took snacks and water bottles.

They all packed yarn.

That is, to me, perhaps the surest sign that a person has crossed the line between fancier and fanatic-when it suddenly takes longer to decide which needlework
projects to pack than which shoes to pack.

The longer the trip, the more complicated the packing becomes. You find yourself asking questions like:

How close are these current projects to finished? If you're within an hour or so of completing a piece, you can't bring it along as your sole project if
the trip is going to last more than an hour. You'll need backup.

Can I work on this while chatting? Vacations often involve proximity to other people who will insist on engaging you in conversation whether you like it
or not.

Can I work on this at the beach, on the trail, in an airplane, in a moving car, while seasick, while waiting in line for Space Mountain? Vacations often
require that you spend time in settings that are less than optimal for chart reading, or counting, or toting pieces of intarsia that require 22 separate
balls of color. You will need projects that travel light.

So you stand there in front of the open suitcases, trying to make decisions.

I really want to finish up the sock, but it's a second sock and it's almost finished, and I can never remember how to turn a heel or graft the toe without
instructions, so I'll need to make sure I bring the pattern and my Kitchener stitch cheat sheet. I'll probably finish the sock by the time we land, so
for the beach.let's see.I'd love to finish the afghan but I'm not going to knit that in the sun by the water.I could get a jump on the Christmas presents.
Four pairs of mittens and four matching hats, all in colorwork, so that's sixteen balls of yarn.and two sets of needles.and stitch markers.and scissors.and
tapestry needle.and another tapestry needle for when I lose the first tapestry needle.and stitch holders.and the patterns.which are charted, so I can't
bring those to dinner or on the tour bus.so I suppose I could knock out some plain dishcloths, just to keep my hands busy.so another set of needles.and
let's say four balls of cotton.and lace is always nice in hot weather, what about that shawl that's been in my Ravelry queue for a year.the yarn is here
somewhere.

You go on like this until you find you've packed half your stash and there's no space for underwear.

And you ask yourself, Does a person really need underwear? Really? Is anybody going to check to see if I'm wearing it?

The worst case scenario, of course, is finding that you've run through whatever you brought with you and have no way of getting more.

It happened to a friend of mine, who set off for the getaway of a lifetime-a week on a at a friend's home on a private island off the coast of New England.
Upon arrival at the airport, he realized he'd brought the wrong piece of hand luggage. Instead of a bag full of yarn, he had a similar bag full of dirty
gym clothes.

After taking a few deep, calming breaths, he decided to approach the situation as an exercise in self-discipline. He would set knitting aside for the week.
He would fill the gap with meditation, swimming, sunning, hiking, bird watching, and all the other delights of his temporary island home.

By the morning of the second day in the island house, he had begun to collect the sheddings of the resident shaggy dog.

By that afternoon, he had fashioned a crude spindle with a borrowed CD as the whorl.

By the following day, he was spinning the dog fur into yarn. Which he then began to knit with a pair of sharpened pencils.

If that sounds perfectly reasonable to you.we should go on vacation together.

Having a Ball, Wish You Were Here | Franklin Habit for the Lion Brand Notebook

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If you'd like to vacation with Franklin, check out his
'Nautical Knitting' Cruise
with Melissa Leapman, now booking for December 2013.

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Writer, illustrator, and photographer Franklin Habit is the author of It Itches: A Stash of Knitting Cartoons (Interweave Press, 2008-now in its third printing)
and proprietor of The Panopticon (
the-panopticon.blogspot.com),
one of the most popular knitting blogs on Internet. On an average day, upwards of 2,500 readers worldwide drop in for a mix of essays, cartoons, and the
continuing adventures of Dolores the Sheep.

Franklin's other publishing experience in the fiber world includes contributions to Vogue Knitting, Yarn Market News, Interweave Knits, Interweave Crochet,
PieceWork, Cast On: A Podcast for Knitters, Twist Collective, and a regular column on historic knitting patterns for Knitty.com.

These days, Franklin knits and spins in Chicago, Illinois, sharing a small city apartment with an Ashford spinning wheel and colony of sock yarn that multiplies
alarmingly whenever his back is turned.