Mirrored from The OEconomist. You can comment there or here.

A few weeks ago I got a fairly sudden invitation to travel to Europe and speak at a conference. I decided to spin out the trip and spend 2+ months touring around while I was over there. And so for the last little while I’ve been madly running round trying to get everything ready and do all the things I need to do before I leave.

It’s meant that the sewing phase I was heading into was abruptly arrested just as I was finishing the red dress I was working on.

Still to be hemmed when I took this, but looking okay.

It also meant I put down the woolly shawl I’d just started working on, and cast on something light for the European summer, using some yarn I picked up from a pop-up yarn shop on Lygon Street a couple of weeks ago. Although it had no label, I think it’s Avril linen-cotton slub in colourway “00″, a natural bone sort of colour.

The pattern is Shaelyn, a fairly easy triangle shawl using a variation on feather-and-fan lace. Easy enough to knit without a pattern, but with a bit of interest so I don’t doze off completely. It’s going far slower than I hoped it would despite the swathes of plain knitting; it’s been weeks and I’m only just finishing the first 50g ball! Still, I’ll take it with me on the plane, and hopefully finish it not too far into my trip.

About 1/3 complete, I think.

I’ve often found that hotel room carpets are great for blocking non-fiddly shawls, in any case… the weird velcro texture of them is enough to hold the shawl in place if you spread it out into shape, and the air conditioning (assuming there is aircon) dries it in no time. When I used to do a lot of business travel, I’d often take unblocked shawls and a little bottle of wool wash with me for that very purpose.

Anyway, I guess this is just to say, don’t expect any cooking posts between now and October. I suspect there’ll be a few knitting updates from on the road, though.