Well, it is that time 🙂  Time to prep the Vacation Knitting!  First, the Camping Knitting and then the Beach Knitting.  

The Camping Knitting is pretty straight forward (2 nights within the family in tents in the woods does not require an epic amount of knitting!).  I will be bringing last year’s Camping Knitting project —the one that did not actually make it to the camp out because the yarn did not arrive on time (Sarah was tracking the package while we were packing up hot dogs and sleeping bags and bug spray and while we were loading the cars — we had hope for awhile, but you can only stall so long in these situations….the yarn arrived our house several hours after we had departed).  The project is a big garter shawl situation which should lend itself to camp site knitting (no chart to waft into the campfire and easy to drop at a moment’s notice if something like a bear or a scary bug — most likely the latter — storms the campsite).  Nice sturdy wool yarn on size 9 needles (4 stitches to the inch) so I can see what I am knitting by firelight.  Perfect!

The Beach Knitting is more involved since we will be there for a couple of weeks — and there are a variety of knitting situations to anticipate (car knitting, hanging-out-with-family knitting, quiet on-my-own knitting, restaurant knitting, on-the-beach knitting, poolside knitting….) each of which requires a rather specific type of project.  So, several projects — and all their respective parts (patterns, needles, yarns, etc.) — must be prepped and packed.  

This week, I am swatching a couple of new projects so I can be sure of having the right needles along.   There are no yarn shops in the area anymore — I mean where we go to The Beach — so I cannot dash into town and pick up a different size if I need it.  Of course, nowadays you can amazon prime anything — even to The Beach!  When we first started going there when the kids were little there was not so much as a Fred Meyer nearby — and, of course, no internet shopping!  If someone ended up there with only one flip flop, they were out of luck 😦

So, I COULD — in an emergency — order needles, but I am more of the “be prepared” school.  In fact, if there is anything that could be said of me, regarding travel (or running errands around town) it is that I like to be well equipped.  So, I will have MORE than enough knitting along with me for The Beach (and I will be bringing a back-up project for camping too!).  The new projects are what I think of as Late Summer to Early Autumn projects — a medium-weight cotton shawl in burgundy and a short-sleeved Fair Isle sweater.  

NOT that I am rushing toward Autumn!  Summer Has only just passed its 1/3 mark (don’t let school year schedules fool you on this!).   And in the Pacific Northwest (at least on our side of the mountains) Summer feels like it has just finally arrived!  Hot days and mild nights this week — tho today is gray and muggy and pretty much ideal knitting weather 🙂 And I still have some swatching to do — and I have to wake up my big garter shawl situation and let it know it is going camping at last!