Vacation Projects

So what kind of crafting projects do you choose for your vacations?  Do you choose something simple & mindless (why stress about something while on vacation?) or do you go all out for something complicated?

For myself, I pretty much choose mindless projects for when I’m traveling for vacation – that way I don’t have to carry charts or anything around.  But I’m going to do something different when I’m on vacation next week. I’m not going to be doing any traveling beyond a trip to Seattle on the weekend to see my two favorite baseball teams play but that’s about it!  So it’ll mainly be a “staycation” and I decided to challenge myself.

(both of these photos courtsey of Erica Jackofsky)

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I don’t often knit lace  – I do think it’s pretty, but it’s just not usually something I gravitate towards.  But when Erica Jackofsky released the newest pattern from her Shades of Green collection, it totally caught my eye.  The pattern is Blackberry Blossom Scarf & it’s so pretty!  I really liked that it was so versatile – I don’t often wear my shawlettes but I do wear a lot of scarves & cowls.  So I immediately snapped it up!

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Then I realized that there is beading! And nupps!  I’ve never done that before!  So here was a good challenge for me.

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I bought the beads last week & finally, after much digging through my stash, on using my skein of Stroll Tonal for it (Erica used Stroll Bare that she handdyed herself).  The color even fits the name!

There are over 300 beads on the cast on!  So I hunkered down last night & strung them all on

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I like the beads I chose a lot, but man, did it take a long time to string them on.

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I thought I was going to lose my mind!

So to start my vacation, I’ll be doing a 600+ long tail cast on with these beads, something I’ve never done before.

What do you think?  Am I crazy for tackling this when I’m suppose to be relaxing?  What have been some of your more successful vacation projects?

(Psst: In case this ends up making me too crazy, I also bought Erica’s other new pattern, Peridot Tunic, which is now part of IDP.)