I’ve just had a terrific week.

After some serious looking, I’ve been offered a super job. 😀 My days of idleness and knitting are numbered! As an IT consultant, I expect that I’ll have to do some travelling but I promise my knitting will be my constant companion. I’ll keep you posted on the trial of trying to fit knitting into the working week!

Then, as if that wasn’t enough, I jumped on a plane for a week in Israel with Ben. Ben was on a two week training course for his work, in Tel Aviv, so I joined him for the weekend and the second week.

Don’t worry – I’m getting to the knitting bits! 😛

So what knitting to take to Israel? Too damn much – that’s what!

Security at the Israeli airports is seriously strict. I wasn’t going to risk anything long and pointy for the flight – even bamboo. I decided to play it very safe and take some short bamboo DPNs ( that were as threatening as 4 cocktail sticks) and a ball of sock yarn. I only have one set of bamboo DPNs in 2.5mm so I had to find a pattern to fit…

I decided to follow the thousands of other knitters before me and do Hedera by Cookie A. free from Knitty.

I chose Nature’s Palette in colour “Owl’s Clover” from my stash – OK, it’s a very recent addition to my stash. I made a heroic dive across the room and intercepted it on the way to the dustbin when Jane (a fellow Guilty Knitter) was having a stash purge.

Jane. I love your stash purges!! Thank you!!

I started the sock and had it on the needles before I left – just in case the security guard’s English didn’t include the word “knitting”…I could imagine me trying to explain, with much handwaving and no Hebrew, what it was all for!

It all got buried in the bottom of my carry on bag, stuffed in a little pink makeup case…

The good news is that no one batted an eyelid at my knitting at security or on the flight. Unfortunately, I fell asleep both ways for large portions of the flight so I have only managed this much!

Not much to show for 10 hours of flying!! It’s a fun pattern so far – this will be my “travelling sock” now I’m back.

So. Beach knitting…

Several people I know were horrified at the notion of knitting amongst the sand, sea, sweat and greasy suntan lotion. It does take some forethought. I have learnt from (sticky) experience that Kidsilk Haze and sweaty hands are a match made in Hell.

I didn’t want to take Frappe because I was easily going to be onto the making up stage – knitting is one thing – pins, darning needles, sewing on the beach? I’m not quite that insane.

I have found that cotton is very good on a beach – it doesn’t stick to your hands or attract sand. I also have managed to accrue 67 balls of Jaeger Siena in my stash 😯

Subbing the Siena for 4ply cotton, I threw all the yarn, pattern and needles in the case to make Geno from Rowan 43 – in fact it’s the only design I really like from that mag! Lacey front, plain back – lots of choice of what to knit!

I love the Lace on this…

I then had a pang – it’s a bit fine…I’ll just throw 7 balls of Silk Cotton and the needles and the pattern for Glace from RYC Summer delights into the suitcase – you never know…

Thats’s this one – from the cover … 😳

I seriously thought I needed to take enough yarn to complete a cardigan, a singlet and a pair of socks! No wonder my case weighed a ton!

So did I finish all these projects on the beach?

Of course I didn’t!

I managed this much of the lace – one whole pattern repeat – for Geno before deciding that being hunched over a lace pattern chart on a beautiful sun drenched beach was not the best use of my sun tanning potential!

I switched to Glace – There’s 18 cms of 2×2 rib to start Glace – much more suntan friendly!
I managed this…

The sun in Israel was very strong – I tan really easily and rarely burn but even I had to take a couple of days off from the beach.

I explored up the coast, while Ben was busy working 😀 , to the port of Jaffa and drank freshly squeezed Jaffa orange juice in a the flea market of Jaffa! I poked around the port and thought, “is that an abandoned knitting project?”

Ben and I took a day trip to Jerusalem – Oh what a fascinating, historical place! We barely scratched the surface in a day. I did, however find a sculpture to world peace…call me obsessed but all I could see was a giant ball of wool!