1. Just now, when I went to log into the blog so that I could write to you, it denied me entry three times. Right before I was about to flip out almost completely, I realized I was misspelling my name. That right there sums up my current state, I think. Seventeen days until the Bike Rally’s over.
2. I finished my back-to-backs, doing the second of them by myself, which was a bit of an extra challenge. I am a collaborative person by nature and being out there alone is a bit of a head trip. I do okay for the first few hours, then about halfway through I start wondering why I’m alone and start making up reasons. At about the 60km mark, I’ve decided all my friends are jerks – that’s why I’m alone. At the 70km mark I’ve forgiven them, and at 80km I realize that it’s not them, it’s me. I am a horrible terrible person who has failed to invest in any meaningful relationships in a way that wants to make people be with me. I am alone because that is what I deserve. Then, at 90 or 100km I get home, step off the bike and instantly have my self-esteem and equilibrium restored. Maybe it’s the heat.
3. The other thing about cycling alone is that the urge to take an Uber can get pretty strong.
4. I finished my July socks yesterday, with days to spare – making these ones plain was a great idea on my part, I get to finish a pair even though my knitting time’s largely being drunk up by a bike.
Yarn is Must Stash Yarn’s Polka Dot Afro Circus, and my love affair with her Must Match Skeins remains pure as the driven snow. Pattern’s my own Good Plain Sock from Knitting Rules – no modifications at all, except that I did snip out about a metre of the yarn to make the heel stripe fall where it did.
4. I also finished the tiny pom-pom cowl, though there’s no pattern to report on that one.
Yarn is one skein of The Artful Ewe Kid Silk Lace, with two tiny balls of Habu’s Mini Pom Shiro.
Like I said, I don’t really have a pattern, using instead the “cast on a bunch and knit for a while” technique. Using a 4.5mm needle, I cast on about 140 stitches using two strands of the hair of the mo, purled a round, and then knit for a while, varying between the yarn held double, the yarn held single and the yarn held with the fetching mini pom-poms, knitting along as pleased me entirely until the whole tube was about 35cm long.
Then I purled a round with the yarn held double, and bound off. (How’s that for a pattern, two sentences.) It used up most of the mohair, and almost two little balls of the poms, and if I had more of that yarn I would still be knitting with Tiny Pom-Poms because they are a pretty spectacularly cheerful spot to park your needles. It is impossible to be unhappy with a strand of itty bitty spheres of fuzz rolling nearby, I swear it.
5. I am on my way to in Montréal (I started this post this morning when I thought I could get it done before I left, but I ran out of time, so here it is, being posted from my hotel room where i’m about to fall over like a tree.) The Road Support crew for the Rally has scouted the first five days of maps, but I’m checking day six, since a) Montréal is far b) most of it has to be checked by bike, not car. c) I’m the one who has to lead everyone on the final approach, and I don’t want to be the jerk who hasn’t memorized it. Today I did the first half, but at least 50km isn’t far enough to trigger low self-esteem, so it absolutely could have been worse. Tomorrow’s calling for rain – cross your needles, I dodged it today.
6. Also I am knitting in this hotel room.
Still working on the Peace of Wild Things Shawl. Yarn is still Berroco Ultra Wool fine. Still digging the combo.
7. Karmic balancing gifts? You betcha. Team Knit is still trying to make it to our fundraising goals. I want to thank you all for getting us as close as we are – it’s your gifts that make all this work worth it. How hard I’m working, your donations – that’s what’s going to determine how many people PWA is able to serve next year, and I can’t thank you enough. It absolutely makes up for how wet I got today. If you’d like to throw a little something our way, Team Knit is:
Kat writes to us with a beautiful gift, The Scrubland Collection, and she’ll be sending the set of patterns along to three lucky knitters… Margo G, Jackie U. and Bethany P.
All three tops feature simple, bottom-up construction, knit in two pieces and seamed, so that the projects are portable until it’s time for finishing. (I am very fond of the Thistle one, and appreciate that there’s a pretty great range of sizes.)
Nancy, sweetie that she is, went into her stash and found four gifts that are ready for karmic rehoming. First, 2 skeins of a 50-50 wool-mohair, Hebridean/Mohair in deep purple heather (I know it doesn’t look too purple here, but Nancy wouldn’t lie) and Nancy will be sending that to Stephanie W.
Next, 1 hank of 50-50 Tencel-Wool, 2 oz, fiber to spin, a pretty colour called Taos, from Chasing Rainbows Dyeworks. Nancy says the purple thing is happening here too, we’ll have to trust Jackie D to tell us how much purple there is when she gets it.
Finally, two beautiful six-pack gradients of fingering/sock weight mini-skeins, 75% Superwash Merino / 25% Nylon (552 yards and 120g per pack) from River’s Edge Fiber Arts. One six-pack is in a colour-way called “Old Fashioned Roses”, and the other is unnamed, but Nancy has named it “Mountain Sunset”. Margo G and Jen G will have to work out who gets which one!
Duffy – aka the Duchess of Dyepots has two beautiful skeins to give away, Laird Fingering in the color Jabberwocky (though she’s willing to wiggle on the colourway if Kay L really wants her to.)
Suzanne has two beautiful skeins of Louet wet spun flax that she’ll be sending along to Terry M. (I love this yarn. Suzanne must be a good person to let it go, and Terry must be awesome for the universe to assign it to her.)
OzKnitter has a nice gift – a free sock pattern for ten knitters! Good luck choosing to Chani S, Kathleen C, Carol S, Barbara W, Mary S, Curran M, Eileen M, Karrie S, Rosie G, and Robin T.
I am rather feeling the Queues one.
Finally, Rhonda (who lives in one of my favourite places in the world) has a skein of Tosh Lace (in the rather fabulous colour geranium) that she’s sending along to Cheryl B.
Thanks for your help all! Wish me luck with tomorrow’s riding/driving. I am going the heck to sleep.