Vacation Creation

If long plane rides and airport layovers are good for nothing else, they give crafters (whose craft supplies are allowed through TSA) time to work.

My glamorous view of Dallas.

During the worst of the post-911 TSA craziness, one never knew, from trip to trip or even from airport to airport, whether knitting needles would be allowed. My solution was to print out the current TSA regulations on knitting needles from their official website and carry them, along with a self-addressed, stamped envelope, in my carry-on. I loved whipping that out whenever they gave me crap. :)

I never had to use the envelope and eventually stopped carrying it. I was only made to take my work off needles once - which was the incident that prompted me to become a TSA educator on the subject.

So, as Cassandra and I have mentioned, our original design was chosen for inclusion in the book, What Would Madame DeFarge Knit: Volume 2. (Here is a link to Volume 1.) Needless to say, we're over the moon about the opportunity. But... Whew! It's been a bit stressful! Our finished object has to be turned in by April 1 so I've been using my plane and airport time to test knit the pattern one, more, time. Believe it or not, even after multiple tests, I still found two "typos" (sounds better then "mistakes".)

We're not allowed to divulge any details about our project but I can tell you that, between the lace border and picot edge, it's pretty fancy and super fun to knit. I hope you all will buy a copy of the book this summer and try it out too.

Here is a peek!

Back to knitting for me. I've got an hour left at Dallas-Fort Worth and I can probably finish the piece I'm working on.

- Alex the Traveler