Tour de France Knit-a-Long Wrap-Up

This is my Final Sprint for the Tour de France KAL. I had planned to get this up earlier today to be sure I met the deadline, but a large part of my day was spent puppy-sitting for a ball of fur with a tummyache. (Yes, it was Sidney and she’s fine now)

Good evening, all, and welcome to today’s show. In this post, we shall recap DPUTiger’s three weeks in the peloton.

There were several bumps along the road. Riding for Team Silence-Lotto, we started le Tour intending to knit Green Gable with this

Bonnie’s Bamboo from Farmhouse Yarns.

But, early in the Tour we hit a snag. Gauge for Green Gable was not going to happen in this yarn in anything approaching a fabric our rider would be happy with. Fortunately, I have since found a great pattern for it in this book, so the yarn is not doomed to a black hole of the stash.

Time for a new bike. At least it wasn’t as dramatic a change as John Lee Augustyn’s slide over a hill in the mountains … he slid a little, and his bike just kept going and going and going!

Mmmm … Classy!

A trip to my favorite LYS resulted in a “bike change.” Thankfully, I didn’t try to sit down on Jens Voigt’s saddle-free seat post! Bloomin’ Yarns is having a knit-a-long for Sprout, and I got sucked in to a sweater’s worth of Dream in Color Classy. YUM!

I successfully negotiated the traffic furniture created by things like short rows and choosing an increase. I started out doing M1 increases but had to think about those every time they came along, so I switched to the lifted increases I’ve been using in my Cat Bordhi/New Pathways socks. No thinking is a good thing!

I thought about ripping back to make all the increases the same, but that could create something scary like my nomination for Most Spectacular Tour Crash, when Sven Kraus of Gerolsteiner caught a piece of traffic furniture and went flying, with his bike going skyward in two pieces. ::shudder::

Sprout!

Sprout has been zipping right along between work on the Black Socks of Doom. They are recently completed, but I haven’t managed to hijack the Hubster’s feet for a photo shoot yes. And I don’t have blockers big enough to do the job. Seriously.

But the sweater is going nicely. I’m nearly halfway through the yarn purchased for this project and it’s going great. I’m through the side shaping and now just have a little more of the torso to finish and sleeves to Magic Loop.

I’m a little disappointed in myself for not participating fully in the TDF KAL. I should have participated in more of the intermediate sprints, but I’ve truly enjoyed being part of the peloton!

Oh, and I have one new addition to the household:


Isn’t my new bike awesome? I’m hoping to take it out for the maiden voyage in the next day or two. Purchased it here. Highly recommend that shop if you're in the Pittsburgh area. They were awesome! Whee! :-)

Tour de France KAL: Equipment Change

So I had totally intended to knit Green Gable for the Tour de France Knit-A-Long. I had some Farmhouse Yarns Bonnie’s Bamboo all ready to roll, but gauge was not my friend and that project was not to be.

(on a side note, I purchased Knit So Fine at my LYS on Saturday since I found a pattern in there I like that meshes perfectly with the gauge I was getting on the bamboo. But I digress)

Anyhoo, my chain was slipping on that project and I was thinking that a new back wheel would help get me back up in the peloton, but no such luck.

Last Thursday, I walked into my favorite LYS and Michelle, the store owner, twisted my arm (ouch!) and waved my employee discount in my face and FORCED me to start knitting Sprout as part of the store KAL.

I got me some Dream in Color Classy, a yarn I had admired from afar as I wound kits for Tulip and Rocketry all through January and February. Deep Seaflower colorway.

Me likey.

So I jumped on the bandwagon with my brand new “bike.” In the form of some very pretty blue/green/purple yarn. I even found the perfect buttons in the store on Saturday. And here I am knitting along on Sprout!

It looks much nicer in person when it’s not so scrunched up

I started out knitting this on my KA interchangeable set, but the yarn was crocking and turning my beautiful shiny new needles blue. So I switched to my Options set and am cranking right along, cabling without a cable needle and increasing to my heart’s content.

I haven’t given up on socks, I’m just working on a deadly-boring pair at the moment

Yep. Onyx means Black.

They’re for the Hubster, who insists that he’ll only wear black socks. So at least I got probably my very favorite yarn in black. Fiesta Boomerang, purchased on my Oklahoma City business trip.

The only problem is that although I am knitting toe-up in order to maximize every inch of this yarn for the Hubster’s size 11.5 ski feet, I think these socks are going to be significantly shorter than I’d like cuff-wise. Do I?:

A) just stop when I run out of yarn and tell the Hubster he should simply be happy to get hand-knit socks for his gigantic feet

B) Google-fu another skein of Boomerang in Onyx

C) Bust out the Reynold’s Soft Sea Wool in my stash and knit the cuffs in something a little thinner, scratchier but still BLACK?

All opinions welcomed/encouraged. Hurricane Knitters? You get to chime in in person on Wednesday night at the Waterworks Barnes & Noble. Sprout and the Black Socks will be in attendance.