New Year, New Pattern

Last year, I had my eye on this Drops pattern...

cabled cardi
...and bought the yarn for it.
But when I saw the fineness of the fiber, I was worried about how long it would take me to knit up! I've chickened out and I'm not going to make the cabled top, but I went on the Drops free patterns site and found this top to make instead!

cardi
And, I should even have some yarn left over to try making these cute bobbled wrist warmers.

wrist warmers
I began a sleeve on January 1st, finished that on the 3rd and am currently knitting the second sleeve. I'll post pics soon!

Year End Bike Ride Stats

As you've learned from reading my blog, in addition to learning to knit in 2006, I got back into bike riding. I've been posting my mileage here just for extra motivation. I'm excited with my year end totals! Even better, I'm thrilled with how fit I'm feeling and I've lost weight too, so I can knit smaller sizes and finish projects faster in 2007 :-)

The chart starts on July 25th, when we got the new bikes.

Month...Days biked/Available days...Total Miles
July.........7/7......103.20
August..... 19/31.....250.83
September...24/30.....358.95
October.....23/31.....350.98
November....25/30.....653.84
December....24/31.....592.14
...122/160...2309.94

Thank you for your encouraging comments on my biking this year.

Happy New Year!!!

Cyclocross Nationals

J and I watched our second cyclocross race on Saturday. It was the Nationals, so it was fast and thrilling!

The elite men get off to a fast start on the pavement:


Dismounting and carrying the bikes up the stairs:

Spectators cheered and rang cowbells:


This guy's fork broke. You can see Things Going Wrong here as the front wheel separates from the bike and the distance between the wheel and down tube widens. It looks like he's starting to unclip his right foot too:


The weather was gorgeous and we had wonderful company as Debby and C drove over to watch it with us!

Visit and Update

Saturday, J and I had a fun day trip to Connecticut to visit with Debby and C. We watched a cyclocross race, biked a rail trail together and had dinner out in Middletown after a couple of stops at bike shops. Check out Debby's site for pics of the racing. I haven't been able to get thoughts of cyclocross out of my head since watching it. I think I'm going to have to try it someday! J and I are getting road bikes in the new year, then perhaps, we will save up for cyclocross bikes!

The weather has been fabulous for December, yesterday was in the 50's! I got out for a 54 mile ride and J did 27 miles when he got out of work.

I have one more knitted Christmas present to seam up and then I will be done. I hope to mail a lot of packages this weekend and finally get my tree up!

I hope you are all having a fun, festive holiday season. J and I will be attending a party tonight which will really get me in the mood! In fact, I'm typing this post rather carefully as I'm drying my nail polish at the same time!

Oh, the sale at Sakonnet Purls is in December this year, so I will be stopping there soon!

November Bike Totals

My numbers for this month are pretty crazy! You can tell I love bike riding. I especially love feeling more fit!

I rode 25 days this month and did a total of 653.84 miles!

Scenic Pic

A pretty New England scene from last weekend's bike ride with Debby and C.

Very Quick Update

I'm working on some secret Christmas gifts and slowly making progress on the CPH. Tomorrow is going to be rainy, so I plan to do a lot of knitting and post some new pics soon.

In the meantime, I've been out biking a lot and have done 140.34 miles this week. The weather has been pretty nice, considering that it's November. Sunday, Jeff and I biked around Jamestown and Beavertail Point. I stopped to take these pics of the Beavertail lighthouse keeper's house which is now a museum.