So, it’s T minus 5 days to the China trip, and travel panic is starting to set in. Me being me, I am blithely unconcerned about plane tickets, money, passports, whether I’ll have the right clothing, whether I’ll get lost in a foreign city and be totally unable to communicate with local passersby, and so on. Those are but minor details. No, my particular manifestation of motion sickness is: four or five days before I leave, I am guaranteed to go majorly nuts on the subject of what craft(s) to bring.
In practice I know I will wind up taking my knitting, because it’s the most compact method to create absolutely gorgeous finework while on a plane, bus, etc. (I would take cross stitch, but the counted cross stitch kind – which is the only kind that even vaguely interests me – takes too much attention.) But first I have to go to my local fiber arts shop, Carolina Homespun, and spend two hours looking through absolutely everything in the store to confirm that yes, knitting is the best thing to take with me. Nutty but necessary, I guess.
I never worry about anything except what craft to bring. I guess it’s because I’m perpetually terrified of boredom.
Anyway, some of the stuff I’m considering (but will probably not buy) includes kumihimo disks and Weavettes . Not to mention sock patterns – I do have lots and lots of sock yarn, or stuff that could be used as sock yarn, which I could knit up mindlessly.
No knitting in airplanes flying out of Asia ………soooooooo why not take some tatting? as a backup? I don’t know about crochet but I have heard that knitting is a no no. No problems leaving the US but coming back yeap!
Perhaps you exaggerate your boredom, but I’m curious as to which parts of the trip you end up doing most of your hobby work on…the plane trip? i assume you’ll be so engrossed in your adventures you won’t have time to get bored otherwise? I’m a compulsive journaler, so find all those little pockets of time sucked up by trying to describe my experiences…
Mostly on the plane trip and while sitting around in airports, waiting for buses, and so on. There are quite a few flights on this trip so I anticipate some long waits…Also in the evenings after dinner…normally I would use this time to hit up internet cafes but I’m not sure what the options are on a group tour. I’ll probably also spend plenty of time blogging and doing up the photo section of the website. Although, I may put off the photo section until I get back – being unemployed, I’ll have plenty of time to do it then.
It’s a 17-hour flight from SFO to Shanghai, so that’s a LOOOOT of time for knitting…