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!

Oh, May… one of my favorite months! The weather is summery (for a few days at least) and I’ve been struck with a mad hunger for summer knits. I say mad because I have knit various lacy tops and cottony shrugs and every time I swear off all that nonsense and rededicate myself to wool. I do not particularly enjoy knitting with stringy plant fibers that don’t give or spring or bounce or plump up agreeably to make your work look better than it is. And the garments themselves tend to get irrevocably baggy and formless, which is not a look that does my figure any favors. But I found myself trolling Ravelry and drooling over this and that, and oh, yes, this again… troll, troll, troll; drool, drool, drool. And I do have a fair amount of cotton in the stash… enough to make any and all of these…

You’re going to be so proud of me. I didn’t cast on a single one of those lovelies. Why? Because there are some shamefully neglected items in the knitterly sag wagon Chez Garter. Namely this: the Frost Flowers Pullover, ignominiously zzz’ing away at the very bottom of my Ravelry page. The date I put on it there would lead you to believe I’ve only been working on it for two years. This is certainly a bald-faced lie. I know I’ve had the yarn since 2005, the year the pattern came out in Vogue Knitting. It was never a favorite project. Let’s just see what I’ve had to say about it on the blog during that time:

“I hereby swear it’s the last time you’ll see me knit with such an unnatural fiber.”

“If I hadn’t been so wet behind the ears as a knitter when I took this project on, I would have substituted a decent cotton at least.”

“…afraid this yarn was going to look like a pox victim knit up… it’s more like the hide of some desert-dwelling feline…. the African Plastic Sand Leopard…”

You can see how the spark never really kindled between us. Trendsetter Spiral and I have been on a four-year bad date, the kind that ends with an unenthusiastic “Well, we have each other’s number…” and you know the relationship is going nowhere. But I am a knitter of integrity, dammit, and I still like the design, and the sag wagon basket is overflowing and spitting out remnants of yarn balls and forgotten swatches, and it’s far too warm to work on the Gee’s Bend blanket that’s also in there with all its attending Manos del Uruguay. I’m getting back on the horse and finishing this thing if it kills me.

Cue Chariots of Fire music.

For a knitting blog, this one has been pretty pathetic with the content of late. I am knitting, I am. I just can’t show you much of the Shibui project, and the little boy sweater I’ve been cooking up needs a good stiff blocking before it will lie still for photography. In desperation, I offer you a scintillating glimpse of… stockinet and 2×2 ribbing!

This, friends, is the better part of a Frost Flowers sleeve. More mindless knitting can scarcely be conceived of, but it’s about what I’ve been good for this week under the dread thumb of the virus. I was afraid this Trendsetter Spiral (and I hereby swear it’s the last time you’ll see me knit with such unnatural fiber – I trusted Norah Gaughan, but now I think her patrons told her she had to do something with this yarn and she just gave the salute and did the best she could. If I hadn’t been so wet behind the ears as a knitter when I took this project on, I would have substituted a decent cotton at least.) was going to look like a pox victim knit up, but I’ve decided it’s more like the hide of some desert-dwelling feline. The African Plastic Sand Leopard, recently extinct and known to Western science only through the appearance of its skin in ceremonial robes among the native tribal elders.

But hey, check out those surprise flowers that suddenly popped up in my garden! I’ve been so tickled all year to see what my new yard is going to do next. I’ve added almost nothing to it because every month brings something unexpected sprouting up just where I’d thought about putting some new plant or other. Who knew I was the owner of a foxglove and a calla lily?

I’m also the owner of some fabulous discount Rowan Plaid in Soft Kelp:

I’m thinking Leaf Lace Pullover ala Teva Durham. I loved knitting with Rowan Plaid so much during the construction of Lightning and my very first sweater for my mom that I had to spring for some more at half price. And a skein of sock yarn, because who can resist discount sock yarn? I love you, Webs. In the interest of full disclosure, this is not my own stash enhancement of late. On the whole, I’ve been pretty good, considering that I work in a yarn store and they give me a wicked discount. Last night I caved and came home with a skein of Artyarns Supermerino 4 in colorway 139, the most enchanting mix of sky blues and grass greens. It was new in the store and I could tell that it wanted so badly to be a wee baby hat for our neighbors’ firstborn, due in September. I had to take pity on it and give it what it wanted. And then there was Habu bamboo laceweight. Oh, the happy knitter born into an era where technology makes such treasure possible. Get thee to Knit/Purl, on foot or online (it might not be up on the site until Monday or Tuesday), if you don’t have easy access to Habu itself. It’s new, it’s fabulous, you’ll wonder where it’s been all your lace-knitting life. I brought home a skein of shimmery, sleek charcoal, 515 yards for the absurdly reasonable price of $15 and a nickel. It’s so pretty I almost don’t trust myself to photograph it. I want to mail it off to Jared so it can have its portrait taken properly, but I know he’d never give it back. Victorian Lace Today, here I come!