Sometimes the weather really is too good to stay inside and knit, and anyway, how could I just leave this beautiful machine in the garage? Yep, that’s the Serotta Ti, and she’s one-third mine! (Happily, my neighbor is willing to accept an installment plan.) Isn’t she gorgeous, raspberry sorbet pink and all? I *heart* her. You’ll have to forgive the iPhone photo; the SLR really doesn’t fit comfortably in the back pocket of a cycling jersey. You’ll also have to forgive my glowing lobsterishness. This is about eighteen miles into the twenty-six we covered on Sunday, which is the longest I’ve ridden in quite a long time, and that’s just how my face gets. I match my bike!

It was the first time I’ve seen Cathedral Park, under the St. John’s bridge—a very promising spot for picnicking above the river. We didn’t picnic, though; we were travelling light. But we did stop for tacos at Por Que No? on the way home, which made for a perfect afternoon.

Evenings are being spent working on the Frost Flowers cardigan. Those of you warning me to ditch it now are probably right, but my mother would tell you I’m awfully stubborn. Apparently I am also optimistic to a perverse degree, because somehow I’m still holding out hope that I’ll really like this sweater when it’s finished. I’m just getting comfortable enough with the double-sided frost flowers motif that I can work on it while I watch the Giro d’Italia coverage. I’m tickled that today’s Cuneo to Pinerolo queen stage takes the peloton through the mountains where Mr. G and I travelled to see some of the Olympic skiing in 2006. The race went right through Oulx, the town we hiked and glissaded down to after the women’s freestyle was cancelled for too much snow and the buses couldn’t get back down the mountain, and through Sestriere where we saw the men’s downhill. What beautiful country it is up there. Motivation to get stronger at riding the hills!

It feels like a long time since there’s been a finished piece of knitting to show off here, and I’m afraid today is not the day we’re breaking the pattern. The Emily sweater has been warmly received in New York, and I’ve made my brother swear to photograph his lovely wife attired in it for the blog, but they are busy people and I don’t know when I’ll see these pictures. I’ve been cruising on some other projects that haven’t gotten much exposure here yet, though. Let’s look at the Three and One progress, shall we?

This one continues to be easy to knit without much concentration, so during last night’s Portland v. Houston basketball throw-down I finished the 3×1 ribbed waist and went back up to my size 8 needles to continue up the torso. Shaping accomplished, I hope. I also thought to sprinkle in a dash of color during the ribs; I started to wonder if it would look funny to have a big expanse of neutral in the middle if Mum wanted to wear it without a belt, and then it occurred to me that I might as well just knit in the appearance of a belt and maybe skip the belt knitting altogether. The fifth-color red is going to appear at the shoulder and sleeve joins and possibly in the button bands but not in the main motifs, so I thought it might balance the whole garment a bit to use it at the waist. My mother doesn’t need it, but I deployed the strong red and the brown at the natural waist also for a slimming effect. (This works in my head, anyway—we’ll see about real life later on.)

Alas, beyond the chair in this picture you can just glimpse the season’s first garden carnage. Oh, fie. Oh, spite. This is not what I needed to discover on a day that has already been tedious and trying. Here you may spy the culprit who has thoroughly trampled and beheaded every one of my tulips just before they were ready to bloom:

This did not happen on my watch. Regrettably, other members of the family think it is “cute” when the dog gambols through the flower beds snapping at invisible flying insects. Said members felt my wrath when this was allowed to happen last year and seem to have totally forgotten the experience. Surely it is only fair if those who choose not to monitor and contain the canine exuberance are assigned procurement duties for fencing materials? Unless they would rather we paved the back yard and had nothing growing at all?

Meanwhile, I shall take a deep breath and look up.

So that’s what a road bike feels like.

I ride a sweet little cruiser (mine’s more like the men’s version at right), as you know if you’ve read here for a while. I love her; she’s so stylish and just the thing for commuting around town. But of course I knew there was more to be had from the cycling experience. I’m an avid watcher of pro cycling and I’ve seen those svelte featherweight machines that let you go cranking up the Alps or the Pyrenees like a goat. This week I finally got to try an honest-to-goodness road bike, my neighbor’s 1992 Serotta… which she just happens to be fixing up to sell. (It just happens to fit me, too.)

This bike has seen many, many tour miles, and she’s that particular shade of raspberry that was popular in 1992 (my mother has a ski parka of the same vintage that would totally match). It took me a few passes up and down the street to get comfortable changing her gears and getting my feet into the toe-clips (my neighbors know I don’t have special clippy shoes and were kind enough to change out the pedals for me). Then we were off and away on an Airport Loop (which is the 17- or 18-mile ride you do to blow off steam after work if you live in NE Portland), right up the ridge behind our houses, so smoothly I didn’t have to stand up on the pedals and wasn’t even breathing hard at the top.

Our neighbor gave me pointers to better position myself on the bike and had me practice dropping my hands and shifting my weight back to descend more safely. I learned how to trim the gears with the front derailleur. We took the speed bumps in the neighborhood streets like cavaletti. And wheeeeeee! we flew down the highway ramp to take the road to the river.

Today was beautiful, so Mr. G and I went out again, this time into a stiff headwind along the Columbia, so I got to practice “sucking his wheel,” which I swear is nothing dirty… especially when it’s consensual. Okay, I’ll stop now.

Knitting! Yes, I still do it. No updates of late because I’ve been finishing some gifties and slogging away with some garter stitch that wouldn’t make for very interesting pictures. But I’ve got a Tomten worked almost up to the shoulders, and it just might come out big enough to fit a kid who’s been outgrowing my efforts faster than I can finish them since he was born. And the nephew has been in his February jacket and drooled in approval, although it’s still pretty big for him, and his mother was kind enough to refer to it as “the best sweater in the world.” Awww.

I promise content more interesting to the knitterati soon, if I can just survive the combined pressure of Holy Week choir singing and the need to get the big project I’ve been writing-editing-designing all year for my school ready for the printers by next week.

New version of the pattern added 19 February 2010.

By popular request (and my own long-delayed intention), the Columbia pattern has been modified to include a medium size that will fit smaller heads or those who like a real beret rather than a beret/snood. I’ve also corrected the instructions for setting up the stitches to knit the ties on top. Get the new version here:

Columbia Beret 1.2

The wool I used is a soft 2-ply Columbia wool from Oregon’s Imperial Stock Ranch; you could substitute any worsted weight wool, but a fuzzy woolen-spun will give you a cohesive, warm fabric. The slouchy beret is worked on needles slightly smaller than recommended for extra structure and a felt-like hand. Lines of yarnover eyelets swirl decoratively up to a knit-on garter-stitch topper. The Columbia wool will full quite readily if you wish to tailor the fit after knitting.