Bikes & Feet!

Well, it rained on Tour day. When I woke up, the downpour was positively monsoonal; by Tour time it was a fine, constant drizzle. Very good for the complexion, so they say. I had an easy stint as a marshal, doing intersection control with one of Montclair's finest, who was the very model of courtesy and professionalism. Judging by their radiant smiles and complexions, the walkers and bikers who turned out had a fabulous time, not to mention all the free bananas (courtesy Whole Foods) they could eat at the post-walk and ride festival.

Leading up to the Tour de Montclair, I had a plan to make myself a pair of traffic cone orange cycling socks to match my traffic cone orange TdM staff shirt. It took some doing, but I finally found the perfect yarn....



... and promptly got distracted by the Summer of Socks call for submissions. Ah well, there's always Halloween.

The last time I put a toe in the sock design pond it was for SOS 2007. It seemed apropos to try another DIP, design in progress, for SOS even though the time between the call for patterns and the deadline for submissions was less than three weeks.

The first attempt served to remind me how much I dislike knitting toe up socks – the results were pretty, if I do say so myself, but I wasn't enjoying knitting my own design!



So I dipped into stash yarn, started a new DIP, and knit like the wind – only to discover the yarns I used, plural, are discontinued. Argh. It does seem to make people crabby when a new pattern so much as mentions discontinued yarn. Nonetheless, I persevered, and even found some props suitable for a double DIPper. The attempt to simulate field conditions was not wholly successful, though, as the most evocative lighting is too dim to properly show off the sock.



The pattern is now in the capable hands of the judges, who will announce their decision in about a month. If it is not selected, I'll offer it for sale – I'm that pleased with the results.

Speaking of stargazing, this Friday the hills are alive with The Sound of Music, thanks to the Cinema Montclairismo screening and sing-along in the Presby Memorial Iris Gardens. Bring a lawn chair if it stops raining.