KIPing and Traveling Light in Minneapolis

I'm at the Public Library Association convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota this week. We're learning all sorts of things about serving our patrons. I've gotten several good ideas to take back to the librarians I serve in SE Kansas.

I see lots of knitters around the convention hall. Three of us traveled together from Kansas. One is working on a dishcloth, another a sweater and I'm doing socks. I've seen more large items being Knit in Public than I expected. My hat is off to the ladies who juggle bulky yarns and half finished sweaters along with their coats and conference materials.

I find my little ball of sock yarn and 2 sets of circular needles to be a challenge enough to keep untangled. A lady I met in Lyndon, Kansas, showed me how to knit socks two at a time from one ball of yarn. One sock is knit from the center-pull thread and the other sock is knit from the outer thread. When the yarn gets twisted, you just suspend it from the two threads and spin until it's straight again. I'm trying her technique on this trip and really like it. One ball of sock yarn and work in progress will stuff nicely into my jacket pocket. I can take it with me anywhere!

I do like to travel as light as possible. I've found my favorite convention attire to be slacks and a shirt and the man's suit jacket I found at Goodwill. It cost me a whole $8.00! What a find! Two big pockets and a chest pocket on the outside and two inside pockets. I carry my money, credit cards and electronic room key in a business card folder in one of those inside pockets and slip my Palm Treo cell phone into an outside pocket. The Treo is my calendar, memo pad, audiobook player, e-book reader, and connection to the Internet as well as my phone, so that's pretty compact, too. My winter coat is a fiber fill car coat. It got pretty hot yesterday wandering around the convention hall. I was pleased to find I could roll it up and stuff it into the bag one of the vendors gave me. The bag has pockets everywhere. One for my bottle of water; another for my sock yarn, and a big one for my convention guide and note pad.

I can convention-go will a lighter step thanks to one-ball of sock yarn, a jacket with lots of pockets and that wonderful bag.