Exactly why my shoulder always aches at airports ... From carrying a week's worth of knitting for a four hour flight! Have fun at Squam!

That may be enough for the 10 hour drive but what about your knitting once you get there? That surely is not enough for that!

It doesn't eat, it doesn't weigh much, the coffee travels. Pack like the wind. (And at first glance I thought you'd tweeted that Joe's studio is on the cover of Ms. magazine. Impressive.)
Have fun. Tell us stories.

I felt the same way last summer. My SIL, I and our collective 5 kids were driving to Colorado, from NY and back. Space was quite limited but I still insisted on an entire bag just for my knitting. How I thought I was going to have all this time to knit when I KNEW my time would be spent driving and/or kid wrangling, I'm just not sure. Great trip. Great memories. Very little knitting accomplished.

Have a magical day! I have knitting time envy.

You can never pack to much knitting!! You never know what project you will want to work on. (You might want one more just to be safe :)) Hope you end up with lots of knitting time on the drive down!

That is a perfectly reasonable and normal reaction, and besides, you have experience to prove it! Remember that plane flight, where you finished the sock and that guy hit on you?

At least,when driving, you can have an emergency back up project in a bag in e trunk...just in case. I mean, suppose something happens?

I know what you mean about taking knitting on a trip. I'm heading to our cabin with the kids for a week, and will take far more things than I could possibly finish. It's all about choices, I think.

Looks like you do what I often do - all those projects are in the same color family!

Stephanie, don't forget you have a 10 hour drive HOME at the end of Squam. I wouldn't feel bad about finding room for more yarn. (It's squishy and won't take up much space.) Can't wait for your show and tell when you get back!

I have the same delusional thoughts. I am a bit embarrassed by the amount of yarn I bring on road trips and currently have on this 3 month trip. But I didn't want to be caught without yarn - gasp. Have fun at Squam. so envious.

Oh I did that for my knitting retreat earlier this year - packed enough projects for a month....Husband was laughing at me about it.

I rushed around minutes before catching a plane coming up with a project to pack. I was flying to Europe. With a one year old that sits (sleeps rather) on my lap in planes and doesn't let me out of arms reach in unfamiliar situations. And any attempt to knit in her presence is futile. With the time change, I know perfectly well we got o bed at the same time here. We're almost two weeks in to this trip, and I haven't even cast on yet. I knew all this and yet I was copying a pattern while my luggage was being loaded in to the car... Hope springs eternal.

You might need to take one more knitting project with you just so that you feel comfortable. I hope you have a wonderful time!

I wish I was going to squam. Also Marlowe would have a baby to play with, Aurora is within a few days of them being the same age.

Have fun, and you never know you could start speed knitting.

cast something on. just in case.

Alas, I shall not be at Squam, but I am in NH, so if you can bring some of that lovely weather along with you, we'd appreciate it!

I was optimistic once. I had packed not only games and toys and snacks and books for my 1 1/2 year old girl for a 3 hour plane ride but I packed some knitting.

Now, if you know plane rides you know that children under 2 ride on the parents lap. How was I going to knit with her on my lap??? Well, I am evilly inclined so I did dose her with Benedryl which conks her out. So I figured sleeping baby on lap = knitting time!

I was wrong. Very very wrong. It took all my strength to keep her on my lap instead of oozing off onto the person in the middle seat or the floor. I kept daydreaming about the plastic bag full of yarn and the cowl I really really really REALLY wanted to finish.

But what about the drive back!?!!?

I understand. It's a security thing. When we have enough knitting for six months with us (even thought we're going to be gone for three days) we feel secure, comforted, protected. Yarn is magic. Don't let anyone tell you different. Have a great time!
(I dreamed last night that my husband's company was transferring him to California for six months, and I was packing. The first thing I packed was yarn.)

But what if it isn't just a 10 hour drive? What if you get stuck in traffic for three hours? What if you take a wrong turn and end up in Minnesota? What if aliens invade and destroy civilization, including all the yarn shops, and all you have to knit while you all run for your lives is whatever you brought with you?

Contingency plans are always acceptable.

I'm delusional too, but - like Susan at 7:18am - I figured out this trip that it really is about having choices. I get bored knitting just one color, and some things take more concentration than others, so you need driving stuff and evening stuff and waiting stuff! I'd rather pack less clothes and do a wash.

Tallyho and have ever so much fun!!! And then have some more for me and my jealous heart.

We've all done it, brought too much yarn for the amount of time on a trip.
But that's so much better than being stuck in a car, nowhere near any yarn shops, with nothing to knit.
I hope the magic holds, and you get that sweater finished before you get there. But, as others have said, don't forget to pack some things for the trip back!

I always pack enough for 3 or 4 times what I can do. You never know when something might need to go into timeout, or it's too complicated for social knitting, or it's too boring and you need the more complicated project or you're just not in the mood to work on the socks, or...

I do exactly the same thing when I travel. This evening, I'm driving 12 hours to go to a family reunion where I'll spend 4 days playing with my family to turn around and drive home. I have brought every project that is on needles...my bag is bursting! I can hardly wait to get in the car and start working on the baby sack I started just for the drive! Have an enjoyable trip!

The bane of my existence is that knitting in the car makes me car sick. :(. I can knit on planes, but it makes the trip shorter.

I wouldn't worry. You have the trip back to think about and it's always better to have a few options. It drives my husband crazy when we travel and I have to pack at least 3 different knitting projects. We have a 2 year old so knitting time on the road/plane is at a premium. But I feel naked without it tucked away in my bag. I even bring a project to work with me every morning, "just in case". I know I won't have time to work on it but I like having it at my desk. If I'm having a particularly bad day I have been known to fondle yarn while silently cursing about whatever has gone wrong. Have fun at Squam! :-)

My rule of thumb is to always take one more project than you think you could possibly get to. Which usually means I have three things with me that I don't touch. You have to be ready for mood swings and freak storms that keep you from going home for a week, just in case!

Also, dehydration in a pool? Totally can happen. Just sayin'.

Oh! How much I envy you right now! I wish I had 10 hours to knit! Then maybe I could get some progress done and maybe start something new?! Please?! Pretty please?!

It sounds like your trip there and back will be wonderful beginning and ending to a great time at Squam.

I'm jealous!

In that 10 hours, doesn't darkness interfere? Ah, but I have faith in you--you'll probably finish all 3! Enjoy Squam!

Have a fabulous time at Squam. I'm about an hour away from there and am wishing you a dry and sunny weekend. We've been building an arc here in NH this last week but dare I say I think that's the sun peeking out behind that cloud.
You can never have enough knitting with you, in my opinion, so enjoy those 10 hours in the car to their fullest.

Have a great time--you just did what we all do. Enough/too much yarn=feeling good about life.

Stephanie@9:25--it is never a wrong turn if you end up in Minnesota. :)

You know, it makes us happy, it doesn't hurt anything. Why do we worry about it? I think our motto should be, "Be prepared". I always overpack books and yarn and clothes, and then I can relax. The one time I really tried to trim it down, I ended up with nothing left to read and paranoid I would spill something on my last pair of shorts (camping). (I did have plenty of yarn, but that didn't help in the shorts department!) That totally eclipsed any brief pleasure I had gotten from just having one duffel bag. We can do whatever the heck makes us relax and enjoy. So enjoy! Vicki

Lucky you! 10 hours to knit! I am envious. Right now, when I'm not at the office I'm at home, in the garden, listening to the weeds snigger "she'll never get us all"!

I say you need another sweater. Cables. Fall is just around the corner. And coral is the colour of the year. You need a coral tank. You do!

I went with a friend to a doctor's appointment yesterday that they said would be about 3 hours. I brought with two shawls-in-progress and a half-finished blanket square.

I feel your irrational optimism!

(I knit exactly six rows during the waiting time, by the way. My three projects were overkill, I can now admit.)

The comments have sparked an inspiration: yarn shops in airports! Now THERE's an opportunity!

Totally understand. Been there, done that. One must always err on the side of caution and pack enough yarn and needles and patterns. We drive from eastern PA to Nashville regularly - 13 hours minimum.

Car knitting must be magic, which totally explains the 4 projects I think I need for the 6 hour drive to my parents (and the feeling that it won't be enough to bring)

You can totally dehydrate in a pool. (Who drinks heavily chlorinated, pee-infused water?!) It's perfectly reasonable to bring three projects for a weekend away.

I would have also thrown in a stitch dictionary and a special ball of something, plus my entire collection of circs. (That's just like putting a blank notebook and pen beside your bed at night.)

What about the knitting for the drive home??????????

I'm going to start sneaking more yarn in my instrument cases when we go to Bluegrass Festivals. That way, my husband can't say anything about how much stuff I bring. Have fun on your trip.

For my recent trip to Ontario from Manitoba I packed... socks. Plain black, lovely yarn, easy pattern. I spent about one hour in all that time knitting because as it turned out, despite bringing another driver with me, he didn't want to drive. When we got there, the other potential driver we were visiting did not want to drive either. Untold hours of potential knitting time down the drain! (24 hours there, 24 back, trip to Niagara Falls 8 hours, all the visiting and going on side-trips, ten days' worth of driving - and only ME behind the wheel. Sickening! Any other trip, I could have done scads of knitting and the socks would have been inadequate. Perhaps I had a premonition?

I think you've brought enough, Ms. Stephanie. You don't know what inspiration will hit you at Squam.

You can purchase the projject there and knit it on the way home.

Of course, you might not have anything to do once you get home, but that can be sorted later.

Have a blast!

But isn't that your "One-Minute Sweater"? How many of those can you finish in 10 hours?

I'm the same way with packing projects for a trip! I always want to take too much, and really have to fight to restrain myself. The method I've settled into (and works well for me) is to pack what I realistically think I can knit in the time I've got. I'm a slow knitter, so this is usually just one sockweight shawlette -- my go-to travel project. Then I pack one more skein of sock yarn and DPNs for plain socks in the bottom of my bag in case I finish the shawl.

Then, as I sit gazing at it and I feel the panic start to rise that "I'm going to run out! I won't have enough and I'll finish and then won't have anything at all to knit!!" ...I sternly tell myself that if I really do finish what I've got, that just means I deserve to go buy more yarn wherever I am.

I have yet to ever need to go buy more yarn.

you MUST have one more project....just in case... 10 hours in a car...time warp occurs. jes' saying...

At least one more project "for the road". Yes, you can dehydrate in a pool. The water has to be in ya, on ya doesn't count.

I am digging the three colors of each project together.

Question: What if it was a salt water pool?

That amiga is truly a fast knit and seeing as to how far along you already are you should easily have that one done in 6 hours. So you may be picking up additional yarn and knitting at Squam for the return trip.

Your packed knitting sounds about right to me. This from a person who has a cabled scarf and cotton for several dishcloths in her "car bag". :) And that's for driving maybe five minute chunks of time between stores.... gotta knit! Have a great time! Buy yarn!

I saw the title for this in my feed reader... and new exactly what it was going to be about... also... I have at least 3 projects going with me for a much shorter road trip this weekend... I don't feel bad because I have different kinds of projects which will fatigue different muscles... I'm going for endurance.

Love the toe(s) in the picture. :)

I DID run out of yarn on a trip once. Mindboggling. Always take enough--you can buy shoes and clothes when you get there.

Sometimes I just get hypnotized by the scenery passing by and my knitting lays on my lap no matter how myuch I intend to knit. Have a glorious time.

YEA ROAD TRIPS!!!!!

I absolutely adore the toes in the photo. I always catch my feet in my photos like that, so seeing you do it makes me smile.

I always pack more projects than I can reasonably do....then I berate myself for not getting them all finished. Just wrong, I say. Wrong.

I always, always overpack knitting. Isn't that mandatory? Like this summer we're taking a trip to visit both my mother and my MIL (who live only a few hours apart on the other side of the country). I know, from past history, that I'll take at least 20 hours of knitting with me for the plane ride out there, and to make sure I have enough to keep me busy for the first few days -- even though there's a lovely LYS within a mile of each of their homes that could provide me with virtually any yarn I could imagine.

My rule is always: Better too much than not enough. Especially when knitting or travel is involved. You never know when a 2-hour trip could turn into a 2-day trip, after all!

Enjoy Squam!!! :D I know what you mean about having to KNIT ALL THE THINGS when going on a road trip though. Sadly, I'm always the driver, because I can't knit in a moving vehicle. Pity me.

When my family looks at me like I am a crazy mad woman just before we leave on a trip as I am packing my knitting I always think that if one other person (and I am thinking in your direction) does the same thing then my family is totally wrong. There is normalicy in numbers.

Well, you seem to have enough for the drive there, and maybe a night or two at Squam (depending on how busy you get). But I'd bring more patterns that I might want to make, and then by all means, partake of all that great Squam fiber.

Have fun attempting to dehydrate in the pool.

I do the exact same thing (plus pack all of my needles in case I trip over a skein of yarn that needs to be cast on right that minute). For our last weekend knitting retreat, the yarn and project bags took up more room than our luggage or 3 passengers. You can never be too prepared, I'm thinkin'. (On the other hand, I may forget to pack underwear. Priorities.)

To Lisa at 9.49...I too get car (bus) sick, but not on trains or planes, for car knitting, you just take something simple that you don't have to look at while you knit.
Because it is all by feel, I find sock yarn not so easy but thicker yarns are good....give it a try:)

If you can't knit without looking, you will have to put in HOURS and HOURS of practice at home, hehehe

It's completely possible to dehydrate even in a pool. Your body doesn't absorb water through it's skin into your circulation or GI tract-and playing or swimming can work up a sweat that you will not feel because you're in the water. Also-for people who stay in the water for long periods of time-they aren't replenishing what fluids they are losing. You can never bring too much yarn...you never know. Have fun at Squam!

Welcome to our neck of the woods! May it warm up for you (and the rest of us hereabouts who are offended by lighting the woodstove in June) soon!!

I can completely relate. My boyfriend and I went to Fontanelle Forest last night to hike and then hang out at a table on the edge of a forest. I brought a hat to knit, a shawl to knit, a book to read and a sketchbook and pencils....knowing we'd probably be there an hour and a half! It's crazy. J just looks at me like ...'mmmkayyy' and goes along with it. I have been wanting to go to Squam for 2 years - and I love reading about it. It makes me feel like I'm still "going along" in a way. Have fun!

I'm sure it's possible to dehydrate in a pool or even an ocean. As Coleridge once wrote, "Water, water, everywhere,/Nor any drop to drink." Ergo, it is also possible to run out of yarn, even at Squam.

Glad to hear you weren't planning to leave without a sock. It's never a good idea to travel without a sock on your needles. Somehow leaving without one guarantees disaster.

I don;t want to jinx but It doesn't seem like a lot of knitting for this trip AT ALL! I am not being sarcastic!You Knit like a humming bird flaps!!!
This means you WIL get through all that you showed us,a measly 3 projects.However you will more than likely be getting MORE yarn and definitely will have free needles.Have fun!!!

Have fun at SQUALM and please say Hi to all those folks just north of me. Wish I could come and see you again.

...forgot to add that, as I look at all those projects you have started....I am now not so timid about having LOTS of things going at once. I did have to send my Brigewater shawl to a "lace doctor" by the name of Kim..but that is okay. Once the sickness is diagnosed and she is able to "cure" the lace problem and heal the shawl...all will be will with my world!!!

Have fun in New Hampshire and...LIVE FREE OR DIE!!

Magic it would be....I just returned from an overnight trip and only took 4 projects...because I forced myself to put two back before I left....sigh

Uh-oh. Bringing that much knitting to a place where yarn is readily available? You really are impudent, aren't you? Maybe the Knitting Deities will save you from yourself. . .

. . .but I'm sure it will be entertaining if they don't!

Knitting.....backup knitting......and backup Emergency Knitting.

Is that so strange?

Have a fabulous time, road-knitting is terrific fun. Although I can't read in the car, I can knit; I'll assume some sort of eye/hand connection. However the roads in my area of NorCal are quite bumpy and bad...makes stitches jump off the needles...tink tink.

Ha! The foot in this image is great - it doesn't look all that much knitting until you realise that those are toes there and the knitting is WAY bigger than the toes! Enjoy your ten hours :-)

Oh, I know that feeling! I went away for a weekend conference recently that involved a three-hour car trip and I think I took almost as much knitting as you have for 10 hours. Happy knitting!

I love, love, LOVE! the way you make a sweater for each of your events! I make 1 sweater every couple of YEARS!

'because today feels like magic, and I'm going to need a lot of yarn.'

this could totally be a t-shirt.

Oh where is salisbury hill farm when I need them?

There are yarn shops along the way, surely? By the way, I know I'm tempting the gods, but I've NEVER run out of knitting on long trips. Find myself at loose ends all the time for short jaunts around town that become tedious waiting games. But a long trip? Never. I come back with untouched yarn.

i love that ...because today feels like magic, and i'm gonna need alot of yarn..... it should go onto t shirts and coffee mugs!

sure could have read previous posts before i added my two cents!

Ummmm... you might want to know that it is very easy to dehydrate in a pool. Just putting that out there. Anyways, that should be enough yarn (hopefully) despite that slightly unnerving fact!

But you have to have more than you think because a needle might break, a pattern might be wrong, you might not like it, it might not fit properly, you might lose the wool, the car might break down...
Have to be ready for such yarn emergencies.

I feel that way every time I leave on a road trip. I've even started to take the bus so I have more time to knit or read... but I'd rather be knitting!

Love, love, love the quote about running out of yarn at Squam. Yep it's pretty impossible. I ALWAYS over estimate the amount of knitting I'll be able to do over vacations, on car trips, on planes, etc.

It is possible you could become dehydrated in water if you don't drink enough....So therefore, et al....You need to take plenty of projects....You just never know what might happen....

About a month ago my daughter went in to have a full cast removed and a short cast put on her broken arm. One surgery and 14 hours later we were headed home. All I can say is if I hadn't wisely packed 3 projects for what should have been an hour appointment, I wouldn't have handled it all nearly as well. Never. Ever. Underyarn!

while at the library this week I looked up Mix magazine, which I previously did not know about and saw the cover with Joe's studio.
I even looked inside at the article about the cover and saw that Joe very nicely gave you credit for the architect's quote about thinking big.

I leave for a three-week trip next week. There will be much more consideration (if not total suitcase space) given to yarn-and-project packing than to clothing.

All that keeps the ratio from skewing wildly toward yarn, etc. is that I can count on visiting at least two, and maybe more, yarn shops during my visit. Whee!

I also have alot of driving time this weekend as well. Seeing as I will not be the one driving I hope to turn some of my W.I.Ps into F.Os... I know what you mean about over-compensating though...

Today is International YarnBombing Day...bomb Squam for us!

I'm going to Colorado for two weeks to visit a friend. Flying out there with friend's daughter. Friend asked if I could rent a car and drive myself and her daughter to condo. I said no. I will rent the car but I won't drive. She asked if I had some kind of driving anxiety. I explained that her daughter doesn't knit and therefore is the automatic designated driver. Seriously? She had to ask?

Start the Christmas gift knitting. Guaranteed to slow you down ;-)

That is obviously not nearly enough knitting.

I didn't do much better than you in the crazy pants amount of knitting I brought with me (stuff for a couple of classes, a shawl, a sun hat, and yarn bombing...). I didn't finish anything I brought, but it was good to have a variety of things in a number of different difficulty levels.

You have survived much in life. Broken needles, missing needles, wrong needle for the project, no needles for the project AND now ticks.

Congrats. You are still alive and all is right with the world.

Carry on dear.....

I'm extremely impressed with your writing skills as well as with the layout on your weblog. Is this a paid theme or did you modify it yourself? Anyway keep up the excellent quality writing, it’s rare to see a great blog like this one these days..

All wonderful (except the ticks), but the one question you didn't answer - did you have enough yarn ;~)

The post at yarnharlot.ca looks like it has not been updated since 31-May. I found that you had been posting, but they do not appear on the webpage.