Showing posts with label Traveling with Knitting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Traveling with Knitting. Show all posts

Monday, July 18, 2011

Knitting on Planes


Like all Knitters planning for vacation, knitting is at the top of the list when packing. I usually like to take a fine weight yarn and to plan a project to be worked with circular needles. I also like to choose something with either an easily remembered stitch pattern or very small charts taped on a piece of cardboard that will be easy to prop up in a convenient location.

For a recent vacation as I was planning my knitting for the trip I checked the Air Canada site. They showed on their site that accepted items include:
  • Plastic knitting needles with rounded tips (except for itineraries including the UK)
I started looking around on the Internet as I have mainly bamboo and some Addi turbos as well as old metal needles that belonged to my Mother and Grandmothers. I was thinking I'd buy a set for my vacation project. It was a lace shawl BTW. 

I found Boye has plastic circular knitting needles and they are available in a size range of 10.5 to 19 US  (Too big). I also found Crystalites which are acrylic and start at size 8 US (Too big again). Even the Denise interchangeables appear to start at size 5 US. I'd never noticed before that small sizes of plastic needles only come as DPN's. I'm guessing that it is because they would break too easily.

In the end I took a bamboo set which is what I always do and put a life line through all of my stitches just in case I had any problems. 

ETA: I had no problems and no challenges from security. I guess they don't read their own rules. I knit on both flights there and back.