Days Past: Cycle Touring/Days Present: Knitting a Cardigan

Summer is as hot as ever (maybe even hotter than ever) and my unstructured school holiday days are running out.

One of my goals this summer was to seriously get back to my Lush sweater.  I know, who knits a wool sweater when the temperature is nearing 100 degrees?  But, I have had the yarn for years and always mean to get to knitting, but things get in the way.  One of those "things" was that I knit the lace panel for a size medium and it turned out waaay too big.  The sweater is supposed to fit quite tight to highlight the lace.  I double and triple checked my measurement math and decided that a small was actually what I needed to do, so I put the whole project on hold. For a few years. *ahem*

Recently, I redid the lace panel and then faced my fears of integrating it into the cardigan by picking up stitches.  I am now past the part where you separate the sleeves. I know I had to do all this before the crush of school. And I did!  So, now it's just the basic back and forth of the body, the sleeves--which I will make shorter than the pattern, and the button band.

It looks small--but of course it is on 24" circulars, so it would.  But I think it will work out okay. I am also nervous that I will run out of yarn because I bought it on close out and its discontinued. So--as always--I'll just keep on and hope for the best until I get enough of it made to try it on.

We have a couple of home projects going on, and one of them entails clearing out our storage shed. I have a bicycle I love that I have decided to sell.

It is sad for me to sell this wonderful bike.  But the truth is that I do not ride it anymore. Unfortunately, where I live is too urban and not bike friendly. To ride properly I would have to carry this elsewhere in my car and go for a ride.  I am just not likely to do that.

This is a serious touring bicycle and I have spent many days cycling from one town or campground to the next, spending the night in a tent--or once a monastery!--along the way.  I once spent an unforgettable freezing cold, rainy, spring break cycling across the Florida panhandle. I also spent a much more pleasurable week riding across Holland.

April 1996

It was tulip season when we went and we could smell the hyacinth for miles. In the picture, the yellow are daffodils and the white are hyacinth. My son was nearly two and we are stopped for a snack or lunch maybe--bread and cheese and jam I'll bet.

Holland is blessedly flat (mostly, except for the dunes which make a fantastic environmental contrast in a week of mostly fields and farms). Holland has a bike path network across the whole country.  We rode from one campground to the next, often staying in little cabins called trekkershutten along the way.  These are basic little cabins.  You needed your own sleeping bag as I recall, but some had a little cook stove inside and most were set up to include a small store where you could get fresh bread in the morning. Lovely!

Trekkershutten 1996

I am so lucky to have had many, many adventurous days on my touring bike. It will be sad to see it go. However, I hope I am passing on the means for someone else's adventure.