Knitting and Flying

"I'm going to North Carolina, baby mine,
Going to North Carolina, baby mine,
Going to North Carolina, and from there
On to China, I'm going to North Carolina
Baby mine..."
-- Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerard, Banjo Pickin' Girl

I am indeed off to North Carolina next week for a business trip. The land of barbeque and cole slaw! I am definitely planning on some good eatin'. And good knitting, because whenever I travel, I start a new project. See, I'm not one of those people who, when flights are delayed, sit there quietly and think to myself, "well, we'll get there when we get there." I wish. I tend to get really impatient and rather enraged - but if I have a big, new project I'm working on, then I can look at delays as more knitting time. So for my own sanity (and that of my fellow travelers), I always bring a project I can be excited about.
Truth be told, I would like nothing more than to devote that time to working on my spider net shawl. But I am using aluminium needles for it, they are working out fabulously, and I don't want to risk them getting confiscated at the airport. Can you imagine, really, taking your lace shawl off the needle at the airport (or losing it for good - or missing your flight!). You'd be left with a big, loopy mess and no calm, civilized place to sit down and try and get it back together on some back up needle (which you probably don't have anyway). So, to be safe, I always travel with bamboo. I figure, if it can't show up on the xray machine, then they won't take it away from me. I know knitting needles are perfectly legal on planes these days, but this story is always in the back of my mind.

So, on to a new bamboo needley project. But what to knit at this odd, between-seasons time? I swatched with red Panda Woolbale and green Cascade 220 and am considering making this . I also have a whole bag of Kureyon in purples and greys that would make a nifty top-down raglan cardigan. What to do, what to do? I have oodles of stuff in my stash that could be made into something wonderful, but after our recent move, my stash is in a trunk. Which, at the moment, has lots of heavy boxes stacked on it. And, even when the trunk can be opened, I have to remove my quilting fabric stash to get to the yarn. So, I was trying to use yarn that is not in the trunk, for the moment. Hopefully, inspiration will strike tonight - or, if not inspiration, energy enough to get into the trunk and pick something from the stash...