Counting down...

Well, I'm trying to get packed and get my life in order before heading off to Sea Socks for the next week. I love the reaction I get from people when I say I'm going on a sock knitting cruise. "A what?" Sock knitting cruise. "Huh. So... [change of subject goes here]"

Here's the arsenal, which is almost packed up and ready to go (still have to wind some yarn - they'll have ball winders on the boat but who wants to wind yarn on a cruise when they can do it in their boring old house ahead of time?):



I'm going to throw in a hank of Alchemy bamboo as an emergency skein, just in case my Lacy Cabled Scoop sleeves & neck shaping and the knee-highs I'm designing for The Sweet Sheep (out of that lovely pink yarn you see there) don't keep me busy all week. Not to mention the Blue Moon Sock Club socks, which are going to be my airplane knitting. I'm so optimistic, aren't I, thinking I'll get to knit while sitting on a plane next to a two-year-old? Maybe I should throw in a ball of Tofutsies, too, just for good measure... Never mind that I'd have to knit 24 hours each day I'm gone in order to go through all that yarn - it's better to be safe than sorry.

I keep forgetting that we are going to be getting yarn on the boat as well as stopping at yarn shops in both San Francisco and Victoria.

I really am a freak, aren't I?

Here's where we stand with the packing right now:



I tried to fit it all into two bags, and was just about at capacity when I remembered I didn't have any diapers packed anywhere. Since we'll be on a boat, I'm going to need a week's worth of diapers. I had to switch out a medium-sized bag for two smaller bags, and now it looks like everything will be fine. I'm probably (okay, definitely) going to be adding some yarn, but the diapers will take up less and less space as the week wears on, so I'm hoping it will balance itself out. I wonder if anyone else has ever measured how much yarn they can buy by how many diapers their kid goes through in a week?

I'm in those frantic final stages of trying to get all the final little things packed up, like toiletries and snacks and entertainment for the kids on the plane. Fortunately it's a pretty painless flight down to LAX - not like flying to Tokyo! I still have this antsy feeling like I always get before going somewhere for a week. It helped me finish my Rutabaga last night:



It's still a little lumpy and in need of some blocking lurve, but I think it looks pretty cute! Is it annoying when I call my own designs cute? I know it must be, but it would be pretty stupid for me to design something I thought was ugly, wouldn't it, now?

And now I am off to wind some yarn. I have been promised Wi-Fi on the boat by Royal Caribbean, but if a week passes without a word posted to the blog, I'm either having way too much fun to blog or Wi-Fi was an evil lie on their part. I'll leave you with these pics, for those of you who are curious what the original incarnation of Knee High to a Grasshopper looks like. These are the photos I submitted to Knitty way back when, which apparently just weren't cool enough for the hep cats over there, although I'm the first to admit that I'm in serious need of a good photography class (Bill actually took these, since it would be impossible for me to view my own legs at those angles):



See how nice and lacy it looks up at the top of the leg? And here's a view of the back (these had short-row heels - Grasshopper has gusset & heel flap):