I LOVE a good road trip. Growing up, it was the best way for my family of 6 to travel on a budget. One year we drove from Georgia to Las Vegas for a summer vacation (man, my parents were brave!), and another time drove from Georgia to Niagara Falls. All in a minivan. And miraculously we still like each other! Crazy, but true. Now that it's just the three of us, Vaughn, our dog Scoot, and I, we still enjoy adventure on the open road. Not only does driving give us more options on what to bring (we will get into all the great WIPs I brought in a minute), it also means we don't have to board Scoot since he's JUST too big to fly in the cabin on a plane. Plus, I mean, look at that adorable scruffy face, why wouldn't we want to bring him along?!
Last week our little family had the joy of driving from Michigan to Virginia to New York, then back to Michigan. We got see friends and family and make plans for our move later this year-quite a trip! So let's get into what I know you are dying to know- what did I bring on the trip to work on?!
I am a firm believer in over-packing WIPs (Works In Progress). Of course, this is space dependent, but I would much rather have too many options than be stuck on a 9 hour road trip and finishing my last project too quickly. Which is why for this past week I packed the following:
1. Anthea Jumper by Holly Woodward Designs (currently in testing)- I only had a little bit of finishing for this sweater and knocked it out quickly. I thought I might take finished object pictures in it over the vacation (which ended up not happening) but I did enjoy wearing it to a local yarn store!
2. Lagom Pullover (modified) by Nomad Stitches - I have worked on this sweater for over a month, and knew it was close to being finished. Since I already completed the colorwork around the yoke, this was an ideal car project since the sleeves and body were simple and all one color.
3. Scrappy sunburst granny squares- I made a couple if these with leftovers from recent projects and they were super cute!
4. Hoist the Colors Cowl by The Crafty Crocheter- got almost through with one color of the 3 color version I'm making.
5. Yarn for fingerless mitts that I forgot to bring the physical pattern for so I couldn't start them :/
6. Yarn for a new design that I did not get to.
So overall, not too shabby! For each of these projects, I made sure that each had a designated space to keep my work. Larger projects, like sweaters, got their own project bag. For the smaller projects, like the cowl and granny squares, I packed them in a bag together. However, I kept the granny squares in an additional Ziploc bag to keep everything neat. Now, there are TONS of super cure, adorable, crafter-made projects bags that you can purchase that are designed for knitting and crochet. You can find them at craft shows, local yarn stores, or even online. Right now, most of my projects live in the zillion totes that we have accumulated over events and travel, so my project bags for this trip looked like this (picture on the left).
I also packed a little notions bag (pictured on the right) with all the essentials- tape measure, scissors, the hooks I needed for my projects (these are all Furls, which are my favorite and you can get at furlscrochet.com), metal needles, and stitch markers (wooden ones are from tinkershollowrva.com and clay ones are from hellolavender.com). These all fit neatly in my notions bag, a pencil case gifted from a friend, and move from project bag to project bag easily. The notions bag is also ESSENTIAL to not losing your hook on the road. I cannot tell you how many times my hook magically goes missing the moment I put it anywhere else than back into the notions bag. It can be in my lap one second, I can check my phone, then afterwards, its just GONE. So yeah, notions bag = lifesaver.
Now tell me, how do you choose projects to pack for a road trip? Let me know below!
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