Once again–for the eighth year in a row–we have an American in Paris, who is a Tour winner. Floyd Landis won against all odds. Now, truth to tell, I’ve never been a staunch fan of Floyd’s, although I was always pleased to see that he, as an American, was doing so well. However, after his devastating ride on Wednesday and the ultimate in come-backs the next day, I became a fan. What a ride he made. My husband and I were on the edge of our seats as he worked against the clock to bring his time gap down. Any guy with that much heart and that much dedication is a cyclist to be admired. Suffice it to say, it was an exciting Tour de France, and it didn’t disappoint in any way.
Floyd has a rough few months ahead of him as he has to have a hip operation. I wish him well, and I, for one, will be hoping he’s back in the Tour next year. I don’t think the next one needs to be quite so heart-stopping, though.
The Strawberry Stole
While I watched hours and hours of the Tour and the reruns of the Tour daily, I knitted. Well, now and then things would get so exciting that I’d have to put it down, but mostly I knitted.
I worked on two projects. I’ve been working on the Strawberry Stole, as you know. I haven’t dressed this, but you can see it has grown. I love this pattern. I like the way the lines of the pattern cunningly curve in and out. I also like the lacy ribs that march on and on. The little aqua marker on the side of the stole in the second photo marks the middle of the center section. As you can see, I still have quite a way to go.
Do you ever get a pattern where you wait for a particular row where you perform some little magic stitch and the whole repeat does something special? It’s rather like a much-loved refrain in a song. You just wait for that part to come around again. Well, this is a pattern like that. I live to do rows three and six. Row three has a decrease in it which brings everything to a point. Row six does the same thing on the reverse side in a different part of the repeat. You’d have to try the pattern to see what I mean. The only row I didn’t like at first was row four. I found that decrease a bit tedious until I decided to put both passed stitches back onto the left needle and come at it that way. It was much easier then.
This pattern has lace on all the rows. Therefore, when a row on the chart is read for the reverse side, some of the decreases are done differently. I gave myself a little insurance there. I took a red pen and marked over the decreases on the reverse row that were different. That way, they stood out on my chart, and I didn’t get any of them going the wrong way.
The Spirit of the Southwest Shawl
My second project is my Spirit of the Southwest Shawl. This is still undressed, of course, but I think you can see a little of what I’ve done. It’s already so large it’s difficult to spread out to show it off, and I was too lazy to take it off the needle.
After all my complaints about the needle being too curly, the color of the yarn maybe being too dark, etc., I’ve decided I enjoy working this shawl, and it is very easy. I’ve gotten almost through the fourth chart (the corn). The hardest part of this shawl so far was the first few rows of the first chart. The pattern count moves continually, so it’s difficult to have markers. It’s better to just go with the flow and use markers as directed until you get into the second chart. By the way, if you want to know what those patterns are in this shawl, the center back (at the top of the photos) is sunshine, then come lots of butterflies. After that are the mountains, and the corn comes next. I like the way the author has overlapped the mountains with the butterflies and the corn.
Now, this pattern didn’t call for reversing the decreases on the second half of the shawl. Some of the shawls I’ve made call for that, and I guess that even though Zephyr is very thin yarn and the decreases are hardly distinguishable, one from the other, I decided to go ahead and reverse those in the second half of the shawl. It just didn’t feel right not to. On this garter stitched base, it seems ridiculous to bother, but I’m doing it anyway. I guess I’m in a rut.
I did manage to get the needle to uncurl some more, and now I don’t think about the needle while I’m knitting. I almost pitched these needles out, and I still don’t like how shiny they are, but I can live with it.