Travel Socks

I have to go on a long flight soon, and I would like to have a knitting project to keep my hands busy. Since it's hard to obtain too many nice socks, I can repeat this project on future trips.

Supplies

• About 200yds fingering weight, self-striping yarn. This is for the body of the socks.
• I have a big skein of brown yarn that I am slowly working through as a contrast yarn for socks. I will take off a small portion.
• A set of five US3 double-pointed knitting needles. Mine are bamboo. Less fiddly than a magic loop setup to store in a bag, if you have a typical springy cord.
• Stitch counter. I would rather count stitches than measure in order to keep my socks the same length.
• Closing stitch marker. I don't want to lose them, so I won't take my normal spiral markers.
• Pattern, written on paper.
• Ziploc bag. Contains the knitting I'm not currently working on.

Preparation

1. Decide on pattern. It must be a pattern I've done before. I'm using my adaption of this free customizable sock pattern that calculates guage and has multiple options. It's been helpful, but I don't like that it's split between many blog posts. I'd like to make my own someday that's more straightforward while still doing the guage calculations for you.
2. Write out the pattern. I copied my pattern with the numbers for my size into a little notebook. I know they are right because I've knit these exact socks before with the same yarn base. I like having the pattern on paper because I do not have to worry about keeping my phone battery up.
3. Pre-wind the yarn. I have hand-wound my yarn into three balls: one for each sock's main color, and then one for the contrast color. I'm using self-striping yarn, and I carefully made sure each ball started at the sampe point in the pattern so that the stripes would line up because I like them that way.
4. Cast on ahead of time. I cast on the first toe from the comfort of my own home because it's fiddly and I don't want to do that in an airport.
5. Load everything up. I use a fanny pack as a hands-free project bag. I can knit stockinette without looking. If my yarn is carried at my waist, that means I can knit while walking.