Off on my travels: pod hotel and the knitting-on-the-plane plan

I know it's nothing much these days to travel round the world. It's almost as easy and unremarkable as hopping on a bus to go into town. For me though, this trip is a big deal - I might tell you about some of the many reasons why it's a big deal later - but for now let's just say that I decided to document it because for me it's a big deal. There will be some occasional references to knitting.

To kick off my big adventure, I stayed in a japanese style pod hotel at Heathrow.

I booked it as I my flight time didn't sync with the bus-times and I was, frankly, a bit daunted at prospect of the long journey I had ahead, so a good night's sleep (rather than a long uncomfortable night in the airport) seemed like a good idea. Plus, I'm not an experienced traveller, and to be honest I get nervy about the possibility of missing flights. Missing this particular flight would be a disastrous heartbreak of a screw-up, so I needed to do something. Yotel ticked all my boxes in one go: cheap, easy to book and use, and it was lovely and clean and neat and just perfect.

I suppose if you are prone to claustrophobia, this wouldn't be nice. And, given that I've already made a bit of a fuss about how this trip is a big deal for me, I expect I could segue-way into a load of cheesy allusions as to how comfortingly womblike it was, and how though I hadn't planned it for any other reason than practicalities, that it felt like a kind of ritualised symbolic re-birthing of pre-adventure me to adventurer me....but I won't do that. Let's get to the serious business of taking knitting needles on planes.

Twenty four hours plus in an airplane, apart from being a bit daunting, is also potentially a lot of uninterrupted knitting time, but only if the airline/airport security don't decide to view your knitting needles as unacceptably like some sort of dangerous weapon.

I have developed the habit of taking a current knitting project with me pretty much wherever I go. Often as not, I don't actually get to do much knitting, if any, at all. I just like to have it nearby. Comfort knitting if you like. Security knitting even. Not getting to knit it is less important than knowing that I could do so if the opportunity presented itself. The idea of getting through twenty four plus hours in an airplane with no access to a bit of knitting? Not going to happen, at least not if I could help it.

After much consideration here is what I took.

This is a single ball, about 420m, of Zauberball 4 ply in 'Where's the coconut', to make a scarf version of Summit, (which is a simply brilliant and inspired bit of knitterly engineering), on a set of 3.75 interchangeable wooden tipped circular Knit Pros. I figured that if airport/airline security won't let me take the needles on board, then at least the knitting itself can be saved.

The yarn is delicious, lovely and soft to the touch, but it's just a bit 'sticky', so it's actually not ideal for this pattern because of the drop stitch element. This means I'm going to have to tease it out, either as I go, or once the knitting is done and it's time to block. 

I did consider contacting the airline (Malaysian Airlines) to ask permission, but decided on balance that this was probably the best way to be told 'no way', so am going to go for the innocent, inexperienced, harmlessly but slightly dotty middle aged lady approach. Wish me luck!

PS: This is not the only knitting that is coming with me of course. There is a a large half-finished, Dimpsey shawl in DK, and some other sock yarn and needles safely stashed in the suitcase. Just in case, I mean what if I can't buy yarn and knitting needles and stuff in Australia? Not taking any chances.