During the summer months, I appreciate being able to take my
knitting with me (beach, park, festival, car trip, etc.).  So, I make sure to have a couple of portable
projects going at all times.  Only
certain projects make the cut.

Not every project can be stuffed inside a bag – if it
requires frequent color changes and has an entourage of yarn balls, for
example.  Or if there are lots of notes
or books that go along with it – so most designing projects stay home.  Or if it might not survive being dragged
through the sand by a 2-yr-old.  Or if it
is genuinely irreplaceable (yarn I will never find again, perhaps, or if the
design is undocumented) – because what if the parking garage exploded?

I try to keep my portable projects in a certain bag, so I
can grab-and-go (the family sighs nosily if I shout “oops, wrong project!” and
leap out of the car just as we are driving off).  Actually, the whole bag issue has its own
issues, too.  I worry that a knitting bag
looks temptingly like a purse left on the seat of the car.  So, I either have to be able to stow the bag
out of sight or I will drag the innards (yarn, needles, etc.) out and display
them in an obvious manner that says: I am a knitting bag not a purse.  Sometimes, I just bring my knitting in a
Ziploc bag (by the way, there are terrific ones with expandable bottoms that
are fabulous for knitting projects) and avoid the whole knitting-bag/purse
confusion altogether.

My portable projects are usually simple ones – or the simpler
stages such as a stockinette sleeve with an obvious increase (such as “every
right side row”).  Something I can
pick-up-put-down-pick-up-put-down-pack-away-mid-row is good.  The less keeping-track-of-rows the
better.  Actually, something with little
patterning is beat of all since I will probably be knitting amid distractions
or might be expected to watch for freeway exit signs. 

On a true road trip (when I will be spending several hours
in the car at a stretch) I will take something more ambitious – and generally a
lot of it since I apparently (ambitiously) assume I will be knitting 60
mph! 

Airplane travel, while offering good blocks of knitting
time, has its own constraints – mostly dealing with security regulations and my
slightly manic fear of having a pair of expensive needles ripped from my
work-in-progress at the passenger check-point.

And now just as I figure I have the whole portable knitting
thing strategized, a new challenge arises: 
for the first time since I was about 6 yrs. old, we are going camping!