Travel Sewing & Knitting

During our spring break a few weeks ago, my aunt and I took a train trip to Boston. The train itself was a bit of an adventure. We started at a small station near(ish) her town in Wisconsin and took a train to Chicago, where we caught the train that we stayed on all the way to Boston.  We were on that one for about 23 hours, and while we had a sleeper car, I apparently can't sleep in a moving train, despite the fact that I have no problems sleeping in cars or on a plane.  Lesson learned.  I wasn't quite as crabby about it on the way back, both because I knew what to expect and the timing worked out better.  I'm not sure whether I would take that long of a train trip again, but it was a cool experience. 

Before we left, I made a few travel accessories.  More coffee cozies, one for my aunt and one for myself, as well as a hot chocolate cozy for O.  I used the same tutorial as the other times I've made them.

Guess which one is O's.

I also made an earbud pouch to throw in my purse.  It's been on my mental to-do list for quite a while, but I kept putting it off, thinking it would be putzy.  Not so; it was quite quick and is super handy.  It and the cozies are great uses for scraps.

We broke out the cozies in the Chicago train station while we were waiting for train #2.

I packed three knitting projects, thinking I'd knit a ton on the train, but I only ended up finishing one and a half.

The first project was some boot toppers for myself.  It was a different pattern than the last two pairs I made, but the same yarn and a similar feel (Details on Ravelry). I am still all about the cables.  I finished them on the way out and wore them a couple of times on the trip.

I also wore them today.

On the way back I worked on a cabled -- of course -- headband to wear running, but I was pretty tired by then and wasn't able to either memorize the cable repeat or manage to keep track of where I was on the chart despite the use of sticky notes and marking the row.  It's called Bamboozled, and that's a pretty accurate description of my state by that point, so I finished it at home (Ravelry details).  I'm quite pleased with it.  I'm more of a hat-wearer in the winter, but like a headband for running in the in-between weather.

This is unrelated to my trip, but my oldest nephew's birthday was shortly before we left.  He recently declared that he should have been named Zebulon, so I broke out the freezer paper and xacto knife and made him this.  Hopefully he found it half as amusing as I did!

And now I need to make a dent in my hour for Spring Kids' Clothes Week.  I have a lot of projects to work on and really only one is something for the kids (a new fleece jacket for O), so I'm going to stick to just an hour a day this time.  Of course I have a long list of things I'd like to make if I have extra time, but that's probably overly optimistic...