Making Plans

In a few days I'll be heading up to my family's cabin in North Dakota.  I've written about my cabin several times before on the blog (here, here, here, and here) and my incredible love for the sunrises and calm of being up there.  For the next week and a half I will be blissfully removed from technology - no tv, no computers, no cell phone service, and while I embrace this removal from the outside world, it means I have to be thorough in my plans for what knitting to bring with me.  I have to have my patterns picked out and printed, yarn wound, notions collected, and needles ready to go.  This trip is unusual in that while I'm there, I don't find knitting to be a necessity.  I could (probably) spend the whole week and a half without knitting and be just fine because there's so much more to enjoy while I'm there.  To begin with, I could watch the birds all day long.  I could spend hours and hours swimming in the lake, laying in the sun, playing cards, doing crossword puzzles, reading a good book, or indulging in a day of general laziness.  But there's always a significant chance that there will be several days of thunderstorms that leave me trapped in the small cabin with 12-15 other people and then, THEN knitting is not a question of how to spend my time, but a question of how to save my sanity.  So you see, despite the fact that I may not need it, knitting is in no way optional when it comes to packing for this trip.  (Not to mention it's a 10-hour drive each way.)

It's a little embarrassing to admit that I've been thinking about what to bring for a so long.  In fact, the other day I texted my sister:

Me: "I don't know what knitting to bring to the cabin!"
Sister: "On no!  how much time do you have to decide?"
Me: "Six days..."

You see, even a week before the trip I begin to panic that I might not be adequately armed with projects.  But now I think I have it narrowed down.  A few days ago I started Ashby so that I'd have it in the works for the trip.  For a project like this I like to have it at least started so that if there are any troubles with the pattern or yarn, I'll know about it before I'm in the middle of the North Dakota wilderness.

That's the first half of the border, but I predict that by the time I climb into the car, I'll have the border finished and will have preferably picked up the stitches to begin the body of the shawl.  (I'm knitting this shawl in Cascade 220.)

Then I have a lace shawl prototype in the works and I figured there's no better time to finalize the charts  than while sitting outside soaking up the sun and listening to the wind blow through the trees.

I already know the pattern needs to be tweaked, but that's what prototypes are for, right?

And although I know that both of these projects will provide more than enough knitting for the trip, I'll also be bringing enough yarn for two pairs of socks as an insurance policy.  I don't really knit socks, but I kind of like wearing them and I figured a long car ride or a rainy day at the cabin might force me to make some.  Socks will also be much more mindless than designing a lace shawl or knitting cables, so it will be nice to have them around.  And before you ask, yes, the yarn for the socks is blue.  Yes, both pairs.  I know what I like.

What do you guys bring with you when you're planning for a trip?