Saturday, July 5, 2008

Tour de France 2008

Le Grand Départ

It's that time of year again - yes it's the Tour de France KAL, and this year sees me as co-chef d'equipe of Team Liquigas - esplosivo o che cosa ;-)

Anyhow, this year I have entered the polka-dot jersey category otherwise known as King of the Mountains. This category is all about learning something new, perhaps a new technique, of finishing off a UFO. So what do I decide to do - toe-up socks. I must be mad!

Anyhow my lovely yarn arrived this morning just in time. Natalie over The Yarn Yard has been secretly dying a TDF pack of two contrasting colours. I foolishly wound them before I photograped them but here they are - aren't they lovely?






And here we have what all toe-up socks need - a crochet chain. Now crochet and I have an understanding - I leave crochet alone and crochet doesn't bother me ;-) However, a chain was needed and so I overcame my natural tendency to attempt to knit with the crochet hook and produced this. Not bad eh?


I even knitted 32 stitches into it.



And look - yarn-over pairs for the short rows! And that's as far as it goes I'm afraid.




That's enough of me, back to Tour business. Où est le prologue épreuve de temps ? Anyway, well done to Spain's Alejandro Valverde on claiming the yellow jersey on the first stage and well done to David Millar for finishing 11th and to Team Liquigas and our very own Filippo Pozzato for finishing 8th

This was my 99th blog post, so all things being equal my next post will be my 100th. It will be special one...............

13 comments:

amy said...

I did toe-up socks once (never again; I hated them) but I didn't have to crochet at all--I think I used Judy's magic cast-on, or tried to, anyway. Geez, I can chain a crochet no problem. Maybe that would have been easier for me?!

betseydoodle said...

The colours are lovely!

I concur on Judy's magic cast on...it rocks! There's a YouTube video from Cat Bordhi demonstrating it.

Joy said...

Judy's magic cast on has been recommended elsewhere too.

If only I could fathom out part two of the toes.

kathryn said...

Hope you enjoy your first toe-ups! It's my favourite way of sock making and I wrote a few notes and lots of links on the methods I use here - http://kathrynlovestoknit.blogspot.com/2007/06/patternoutline-for-toe-up-socks.html

The easiest start I've found to toe-ups is the Turkish cast on described by FluffyKnitterDeb here http://fluffyknitterdeb.blogspot.com/2005/10/knitting-made-easier-turkish-cast-on.html

Sorry Joy, I don't seem to know how to do links in comments :(

Joy said...

Neither do I Kathryn but I do appreciate them - thank you. I'm off to have a little look.

gilraen said...

http://fluffyknitterdeb.blogspot.com/2005/10/knitting-made-easier-turkish-c

Links are made using < tags < /tags etc with b for bold, i for italics and a for hyperlinks instead of tags :)

I love the colours in the yarn Joy :)

Good Luck with the KAL :)

The toes are looking good so far :)

gilraen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Auntie Noo said...

Beautiful colours Joy, and I'm sure you'll sort it out. If you can knit all those FCS's you can do a short row toe!! :)

gilraen said...

FluffyKnitters Turkish Cast on link

That's better :)

a href="url" with < and > around it and then the words you want the link to say with the end tag /a with the < > again around it.

Does that make sense?

Linz Knits Now said...

Firstly I want to apologise for not posting on our first day.

You have fab yarn and I wish I was there to show you judy's cast on. It's definitely better to see it action.


I can't believe you're almost on your 100th post...I'll be there when you're hitting 1000!!!!! lol

Jacqui said...

Great start good luck with the toe ups, I prefer them but they still haven't persuaded me to knit socks much :)

Linda said...

I love toe-up socks, it's the only way for me. :0)

The colours of the yarn are lovely. I can't wait to see what they turn into. :0)

Linda said...

They are good colours together aren't they. I am still not sure about toe up socks, I think I need to make more!