Knitting on the Road

Mark and I are on the road for the Thanksgiving Holiday. Four days in Austin then five in Dallas. Now packing my clothes was easy, one carry-on suitcase, done in about 5 minutes. But packing my knitting projects was another story. What to take for theplane ride and inevitable airport delays. Well, something small for starters, this isn't the time to be a hero and start that color-work sweater I promised Mark. Something in the round that I can do with magic loop, after all looking for a dropped double point needle in the coach section of the plane aint no fun for anyone involved.

So, I've chosen to make myself a pair of handwarmers from Knits Men Want.

Here they are from the book, knitted in Blue Sky Alpaca Merino blend. Very thick and warm.

But I just received a sample of baby camel yarn from Laurel at www.handknitting.com.

The fiber and yarn comes from herds in Mongolia. Camel fiber is an undercoat, like Cashmere. Baby camel is the from the first shedding of a the young camels in spring. And the color is natural. What I didn't know was that 10% of all camels produce white fibers and that makes very rare yarn indeed!

I'm using an 8-ply version of this yarn which comes in 87 yard skeins for $14.95. There is also a 4-ply available for the same price with nearly double the yardage.

This yarn is a dream to work with, feels like heaven in the hands. I'm thinking I may need a sweater to match my new handwarmers.

So I'm stuck here at Bradely airport on a 2-hour delay, and expect that the rest of this handwarmer will be done (if not both of the them) by the time I reach Dallas.