Traveling? Think Mirasol.

Car Photography is a Challenge

Those of you who know us also know that Mr. Trask loves him a road trip.  It relaxes him, he says, to drive and think, even if he’s on I-95 in holiday traffic.  Whether Mr. Trask’s presence is relaxing to the other drivers on the road, we dare not ask.  Certainly, driving is not my definition of relaxing.  It’s more “how you get from here to there” to me.  However – we have developed a pretty nice system.  He drives, I knit, we listen to a book on tape (or on iPod, these days).  Sometimes I hijack the iPod and play showtunes, singing along with wild gesticulations.  [He finds this embarrassing even though we’re the only two people in the car. It’s that horrible, cringing embarrassment one feels for the actors at a really bad play. Therefore I don’t hijack very often. Maybe once a trip.]

Moss Stitch Hand Mitts with Contrast

So I generally get some knitting done while we’re on the road, but this Christmas’ road trip (to Boston and back, to see the Trask family!) was particularly productive.  I blame the Mirasol Sulka (rav lnk) I bought at Fibre Space just after Thanksgiving.  I considered making hats with it…but it just didn’t want to be hats.  So it turned into a moss stitch scarf (above) and moss stitch handwarmers with a contrasting seam up the back of the hand.

I just love this yarn.  The more I work with it, the more colors I see.  The photos don’t do justice to it – the dark beige here has strands of blue, yellow, and even red running through it.  The blue has shimmering green and gold tones.  I could go on and on.  I first used this yarn in the Cloud Bolero (rav lnk) class I taught at Fibre Space, and one of the major conversations was about our yarns.  “This black has some gold in it!”  “Hey, look at the light beige!” “Have you seen the purple?” Etc.

That Magical Beige

[Side note: this is just another reason to love knitting.  When we slow down enough to make our own clothing, stitch by painstaking stitch, we notice so much more about what’s around us.  Knitting as sensory enhancement. And another reason to love knitters is that they understand why we get so excited about little fibers of color running through the beige. All hail knitters!]

I started the neckwarmer and it just felt so good to knit that I finished it before we were home. Then I started to crave the Sulka some more.  Plus, I had it all there with me, in the car, calling to me…and suddenly I had a nifty idea for some hand mitts.  There was nothing for it but to cast on again.  Though the Sulka selection in the car was vast, the needle selection in the car left something to be desired.  Knitting them flat ended up being a boon, though, because I had the idea to seam them in a contrasting color.  Supercool.

Stay tuned!  I still have several colors in my stash, so who knows what’s next.  I might even make a hat, after all.

Plus, knitting all of this kept me from blasting the soundtrack to Glee at Mr. Trask for a third time.  Just one of many little touches that have probably saved our marriage.