What I knit while I was away

I planned on making Laar, while I was away, and I did so. It was the perfect knitting to start on a long plane trip, because the picot cast on is quite fiddly, and by the time I finished it I was happy to proceed with simple knitting for the rest of the flight. It's very important to me to have good knitting for these long flights, because I don't sleep on planes, and everyone else does. I'm always to tempted to run up and down the plane screaming WAKE UP, WAKE UP, out of sheer boredom. Instead, I knit on Laar and listened to a wonderful recording of Pride and Prejudice.

 

This was perfect trip knitting, both because it was interesting and still simple and because I failed to pack a cardigan. I finished it a couple of weeks into the trip and got a lot of wear out of it. I knit it in Dublin and Portugal and had it pretty much done by the time we flew to England. I bought buttons at Liberty, but after sewing them on decided they were too big and replaced them with a set I bought at Woolfest.
I blocked it on a towel on the floor of the hotel and Leon took pictures of it in the Lakes district. He said he was having trouble deciding weather to focus on the cardigan or the stunning background. What you can't see in these photos is how cold it was. As soon as we had finished shooting, I put my jacket back on.

After finishing Laar, I did indeed knit the Cookie A June sock club pattern. I used yarn that I bought in a yarn shop in Portugal. Since it was unlabelled I don't know anything about it, but it's sock weight and feels lovely. I modified the pattern a smidge, as it calls for yarn over increases, and Leon prefers his socks less lacy. As always, this was a wonderful pattern, well written, effective and not too complex for travelling.

I finished them the day before we were flying home. I had some plans to knit Wingspan, but at Woolfest I both Nicola and Rachel were wearing  Hitchhiker shawls and knew that's what I had to do. Perhaps I would have gone down a needles size, but I couldn't since I was on a plane. It's very straighforward knitting, and was perfect for yet another long flight with very little sleep.

 
So that's what I knit in Ireland, England and Portugal. It was a great holiday, but there is a part of me that knows that there is no place like home, my friends and my city.