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

[Annette Carr]

I am doing some serious chuckling over here.  I thought he was talking about
me and was wondering how he had been able to spy on me while I am packing
for trips.

Thanks for sharing!
Annette


-----Original Message-----
From: Nfb-krafters-korner [mailto:nfb-krafters-korner-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Susan Roe
Sent: Sunday, July 14, 2013 8:16 AM
To: List for blind crafters and artists
Subject: [Nfb-krafters-korner] Yarn Humor: Vacation Anyone?

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

-

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

-

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.
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