Down time

We're heading to Tennessee for a family reunion in about a week -- meeting up in the mountains with the Bowman clan, under what I hope will be cooler conditions than the prevailing trends here.

There will be many preparations over the coming days.  Clothes will be packed, meals will be planned, amusements for 18 total hours of automotive travel assembled.  My favorite preparation, though, is choosing my vacation knitting.

Right now I have two projects in active development.  One is a Doctor Who scarf requested by two former students for conventioneering and general dress-up fun.  I had reached nearly five feet (out of twelve) before having to rip out four stripes because I got them out of sequence.  It's mindless garter stitch and it goes very quickly even in sport-weight yarn.

The other (to which I returned today because the garter stitch was starting not to feel like knitting anymore, so little effort is needed) is a pair of socks whose cabling is the most complex I've ever done.  That's the opposite of mindless knitting.  Every stitch needs to be considered with care, and it's slow as molasses (but you really know you've done something when you finish a round).

I think I need to split the difference for my vacation knitting.  I'll take the Doctor Who scarf because it will be knittable anywhere, anytime.  But I'd also like to have something a bit more challenging on hand, a bit more beautiful, a bit more engaging.  A lace scarf (without a chart), probably; that's my standard portable, easy but not completely braindead project.  I've already got a long-neglected one of those going, though -- almost done, in fact -- so I'd be loath either to start a new one or take this one (with only a few hours' worth of knitting left on it).

I'll probably spend way too much time looking for the right project and matching it with the right yarn.  But anticipation is half the fun.