What? This is a knitting blog???

So, yes, I've been knitting. Here's the most recently completed project.



This is the scarf made from Fonty Velourine (54% cotton/46% viscose). I picked up a ball of this yarn just because I loved the color. I knew it would worm, doesn't all chenille worm? Nope, not this. It's lovely and cushy and feels great next to my neck. I went back and bought 2 more balls (lucky girl - they were 10% off!) to get a decent sized scarf. My sister claimed it. I think it's a Pavlovian response that when she sees me knitting something, she automatically asks, "Who's it for?" Since I just wanted to knit this, I didn't care who got it. She asked first, she gets it. My mother was not amused - she needs to be a little quicker on the draw.

Here's what else I've been playing with:



It's pretty much a swatch. I want to make a bag with this:



but I'm not sure what sort of pattern to do. I want a bag that's approximately 4" wide and I want one of those big silver handle thingies that the Bag Lady sells, but beyond that I'm lost. So I started a swatch with some left over perl cotton that was already strung with beads. The bottom section is 5 beads with 3 stitches in between the bead sections. The middle section is 5 beads with 5 stitches between the bead sections. The top is 1 bead, 3 stitches staggered to the left every other row. I'm actually having fun just swatching for this. However, these yellow beads were purchased for Tour de France knitting and I don't even have them strung yet.


What? What's the update on the Tour? How kind of you to ask. My boy is 9' 35" behind the leader (who is the way cute Frenchman Thomas Voeckler, see?...)



There's been pretty much no change in the overall standings of the race for about 5 days now. They rode their first mountain stage today in the Massif Central region of France. Tomorrow they head down toward the Pyrenees. All the main contenders (Jan Ullrich, Tyler Hamilton, Levi Leipheimer, and of course, Lance) are within a couple of minutes of each other. This should begin shaking out very soon.

Knitting and TdF updates on the same day...will wonders never cease?