In the room I optimistically call the library,* because one day we will build proper bookshelves in there, is a celadon green couch we inherited from my grandmother Ruth. The walls are creamy and the windows face north; if we could only manage to buy a lightbulb in the proper spectrum it would be a pleasant room. Above the couch hangs a painting of a woman fiddling by moonlight on the shore and a pair of cats dancing to her tune. It’s a dreamy picture by an island artist who’s a friend of my parents, and I’m chiefly drawn to the colors: greens, golds, broody nighttime iris blues and slatey blues and lilac blues. Fox red for the woman’s hair and skirt and one of the cats. A softer red, too, in the faded pencil portrait of red-headed Great-Aunt Priscilla that hangs in the corner.

The couch folds out to form a double bed; this is where our guests sleep. In winter they can snuggle under a green comforter, but in summer they must make do with a motley collection of aged light woolen blankets from my other grandparents’ house. I find these blankets rather charming, with their peculiar seams and haphazard binding—it’s clear they were run up from bolts of fabric for utility. But in their many years of service they have grown yellowed and stained and rather raggy at the edges, and the light summer comforter I best liked to cover them, a simple down-and-calico coverlet that was Priscilla’s when she was small, is no longer sturdy enough for any but the most gentle use. The fabric could be easily torn and I’d hate for a visitor to feel the remorse of accidentally stepping on a corner and shredding it, so I only take it out of the closet for the occasional quiet rainy afternoon of knitting on the couch, and I make the cat keep his paws gentle if he wants to nestle beside me.

In short, I need a quilt for this bed, and the opportunity to make one is just around the corner. My Christmas present from Mr. G’s mother included a quilting class at the big quilting extravaganza in Sisters, Oregon… next week! I’ll be hanging out with the womenfolk of my husband’s family, soaking up as much knowledge as I can (some of the Gee’s Bend quilters are giving a lecture!) and practicing my piecing and hand-quilting skills in two classes taught by Jan and Lou of JanniLou Creations in Philomath, Oregon. The quilt I’ll start making on Friday is an arrangement of four-patch and nine-patch blocks. Because the internet is a land of marvels, I found a picture of the sample. I think it might be the perfect blend of antique and modern for this room.

I bought the fabrics Wednesday, taking my inspiration from the painting above the celadon couch. I found a matching green semi-solid to anchor the midtones, an array of creamy and green- or red-printed neutrals for the light tones, a russet print for the small burgundy squares, and two deep solid blues. The sample is quilted with freehand feather shapes; I’m leaning toward taking inspiration from Too Much Wool Cassie’s beautiful Welsh leaf patterns. (Of course, we may be talking years before this quilt reaches the quilting stage, given my track record.) Something botanical would be appropriate as a connective thread to Priscilla and her sister, my grandmother Caroline, both of whom were avid gardeners and had vast stores of knowledge about plants and trees. And there are botanical prints throughout, from Joanna Figueroa’s Fig Tree, Gypsy Rose, and Dandelion Girl collections.

All this fabric is now cut into the requisite strips and blocks, neatly bundled, and ready for next Friday. Here’s hoping I can squeeze some regular sewing into my summer around the Tour de France project and all the cycling I need to do! A goal: 20 miles every other day, plus longer weekend rides, while the Tour is on. I’m supposed to complete 63 miles for the Tour de Cure in 22 days, so I need to get fit quickly!

*Mr. G derisively calls it the TV room, just to push my buttons. Yes, the television is housed there, and yes, watching it is often one of the things I’m doing when I spend time there, but there’s only the one television against many, many books. And actually, there’s a great deal of wool in various stages of knit in there, too. It’s sort of the Woolery Annex, now I think about it. Someday our children are going to want both these rooms for their own use, but we’ll cross that bridge later on.

Three days left before the start of the Tour de France. I’m anticipating a thrilling edition of the race and plotting a new sweater design to go with it. For some time now I’ve been kicking around the idea of a little 3/4-sleeve summer jacket with an edge treatment in the beautiful Daisy Stitch you see above, knit from Louet’s worsted weight MerLin (this is actually worsted MerLin’s discontinued but basically identical prototype, Avalon). I have significant design hurdles to overcome (How do I change needle sizes to get the fabric I want in the Daisy Stitch and in stockinet? What kind of shoulder construction will work best?), but that’s perfect for Tour knitting. And of course thinking of my Daisy jacket in company with cycling brought to mind the the popular 1890’s music hall song, “Daisy Bell,” known to most (among those who know it at all) as “Bicycle Built for Two” or “Daisy, Daisy:”

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do!

I’m half crazy, all for the love of you.

It won’t be a stylish marriage

I can’t afford a carriage

But you’ll look sweet upon the seat

Of a bicycle built for two.

The original isn’t much heard anymore, but the song has entered the folk tradition and spawned a variety of saucy answer choruses. In my family (and it’s a family that knows more 100-year-old ditties than average, thanks to my grandmother and mother, and always appreciates a saucy tune), we’ve always sung:

Harry, Harry, here is my answer true:

I’ll not marry in spite of my love for you.

If you can’t afford a carriage

There won’t be any marriage.

‘Cause I’ll be damned if I’ll be crammed

On a bicycle built for two.

My Daisy is designed for a modern age in which a girl might well be tickled to be married from a tandem. But in fact, the social history of women and cycling intrigues me. You should read some of the period scientific literature warning against permitting a young woman to ride a bicycle, both because it might damage her reproductive organs and because by angling the seat a certain way she might derive (gasp!) sexual gratification. (This last is pretty hilarious to any girl who’s ever ridden a bicycle, ever, but the men of science of the 1800s don’t seem to have applied as much imagination in testing their hypotheses as they did in formulating them… they don’t seem to have thought to ask an actual woman what it felt like to straddle much of anything, for instance.) Bicycles represented a new kind of freedom for women, a measure of control over their own mobility and a new opportunity to use their bodies athletically. A quote from Susan B. Anthony: “Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel…the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.” And another, which I love, from Frances Willard, a cycling enthusiast who was otherwise conservative enough to lead the Women’s Christian Temperance Union: “I would not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum.”

And hey, the bicycle helped get us out of corsets, ladies. If that sentiment makes you want to follow the Tour this year, it’s not too late to join the knit-along on Ravelry.

Let’s say you have a good friend from Estonia, and you want to knit something quick and lovely for her birthday. You see this on another friend’s blog, and you know your birthday girl likes Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool, and she looks great in all shades of green…

But as you’re approaching the bind off (and running out of yarn two rows short of the goal… luckily there was still more of the Bronzed Green at The Knitting Bee), you realize something is missing. Ishbel is gorgeous as written. But you can’t knit a shawl for an Estonian girl without nupps, can you? And wouldn’t that bind off edge look fetching with little yarn pearls accentuating the points?

Ah, that’s it. If you’d like to nuppify the edge of your own Ishbel (and who isn’t knitting one of these? They’re like the potato chips of shawl knitting!), here’s how to do it: On the last RS row, k1; k into next stitch (but don’t slip it off the left needle)-yo-k1-yo-k1 all very loosely into that same stitch; work to the stitch between yarnovers and repeat the k1-yo-k1-yo-k1 into that stitch; repeat in every following stitch between yarnovers and in second to last stitch. During the purl-side bind off, purl the 5 nupp stitches together whenever you meet them, being careful not to involve the natural yo on the far side of the group. Since this is a p2tog-replace resulting st on left needle-p2tog again bind off, you’ll actually be purling six stitches together, but this is not difficult if you’ve made the nupp nice and loose. I accomplished it with an Addi Turbo, the world’s bluntest and slipperiest needle. I blocked Ishbel without any pins and found the Silky Wool was happy to show off her lace pattern with just a gentle smoothing. I pinched the nupps and tugged on them gently to make them stand proud to the RS and to highlight the scalloped edge.

There’s only one problem: now I want nupps on the edges of practically everything. Expect to see this treatment appearing in future Blue Garter designs…

I’ve been tagged by the good lady of the Fresh Tea blog from 7,125 miles away (that’s 11,466 kilometers for you sensible metric types), a sort of virtual Go-Go-Gadget-Arm situation that amuses me. (And yes, I realize I’m dating myself with the vintage ’80s kiddie culture reference there.) And I haven’t done a meme in a little while, and the most blogable knitting is drying on the floor for another day or two, so why not? Tag yourself if you wanna.

The rules:
1. Respond and rework; answer the questions on your blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your invention, add one more question of your own.
2. Tag eight other people (if you feel so inclined).

So here goes:

What is your current obsession?
La casquette. Probably without the cabbage leaf, but I seriously want a small collection of these.

What is your weirdest obsession?
Um, weirder than that?

What are you wearing today?
A T-shirt and short trousers, the left leg rolled just above the knee so it won’t scuff against my admirable scab.

What’s for dinner?
Surely it isn’t time to think about that yet? Here’s what’s not for dinner: 32 oz. of beer. Last Wednesday I went to Knit Night all proud of myself for having remembered a jar so I could nip across the street to the Mash Tun for some Concordia Cream Ale. However, the only jars I could find were a very small jam jar and the aforementioned 32 oz. I figured the nice beer lady would just fill ‘er up part way, turned to talk with another knitter about her handsome February Lady Sweater, and looked back to find the whole jar FULL of the suds. (I drank it over the next three days, at which point it was pretty flat, but still tasty.)

What did you eat for your last meal?
A brie and caramelized onion scone from Bakery Bar, thoughtfully provided by Jen when we carpooled this morning. Yum.

What’s the last thing you bought?
A book for my mother’s birthday present. It’s in the mail. Happy belated birthday, Mom.

What are you listening to right now?
Neko Case’s new album, Middle Cyclone. My favorite track is “Don’t Forget Me,” featuring the best line by a songwriter I’ve encountered in recent times: “Keep your memories, but keep your powder dry, too.”

If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?
Only an hour? That’s not enough time to explore a new place, so I’d just transport myself home to visit my parents and friends. Maybe I could snuggle Brooke’s new baby.

Which language do you want to learn?
Better than I speak it now: French and Italian. From scratch: Welsh. I’m practical like that.

What do you love most about where you currently live?
Our neighbors.

What is your favorite colour?
I don’t have one, and tend to go through phases where I’m drawn to a few different families, but sea colors are perennial winners.

What is your favorite piece of clothing in your own wardrobe?
My Amanda cardigan, and a green dress Mr. G picked out for me when we were dating.

What were you doing ten years ago?
Hmmm, June 1999… I had finished sophomore year of college. I think that was the summer I worked construction, so I was probably up a scaffold snapping chalk lines for the siding of a house we were building on the west side of the island. It would have been just about time for the orcas to make their afternoon pass. Yeah, that job was idyllic.

Describe your personal style?
Definitely Northwest Casual, but I try to bring a little city style now and then. The grandmothers had some good clothes that I like to throw into the mix.

If you had £100 now, what would you spend it on?
That’s $163.89 in US dollars today. It would go toward my bicycle and yarn, the only luxuries I seem to be spending money on these days.

What are you going to do after this?
Look for a more reasonable size of canning jar. There’s got to be one somewhere in the cabinets, or maybe lurking in the back of the ice box.

What are your favourite films?
I can never decide. For comfort viewing, I always come back to the good Austen adaptations (I don’t have to tell you which those are). And Hayao Miyazaki… My Neighbor Totoro is definitely a favorite.

What inspires you?
Other people’s crafts; arresting colors or textures in the environment–the rusty metal roof of a shed, a tanker stacked with painted metal containers destined for a train, layers of seaweed clinging to the rocks; good quality materials close to hand.

Your favourite books?
More impossible to answer than the one about the movies. A smattering: Lolita, I Capture the Castle, Persuasion, Mrs. Dalloway, A Prayer for Owen Meany, Little Women, Jane Eyre, To Kill a Mockingbird, Charlotte’s Web, All Creatures Great and Small, The Odyssey, a particular jacketless first edition of Huntsman, What Quarry?.

Do you collect anything?
Yarn.

What makes you follow a blog?
Great writing, great photos, craftiness or knitting, irresistible babies, evocation of place.

What was the most enjoyable thing you did today?
I got up at 7:30 instead of 6:30. Let’s hear it for summer hours.

What new skill would you like to learn?
How to balance on my road bike with no hands. I want to be casually pedaling down the road at 30kph, zipping up my jersey or munching a snack or, you know, raising my arms in victory across the finish line without falling over. Being able to pick the right line to bomb down a mountain road with minimal braking would also be splendid.

Oh, and spinning with a wheel instead of just a drop spindle.