I thought I was making good progress on my Aspen Grove Shawl yesterday, when once again I made a mistake and dropped a couple of stitches that have required me to tink back most of what I put in yesterday. I gave up on it last night and will get back to it this afternoon. I think I have about one and a half more rows to tink, which will be pretty much back where I started yesterday.
However, the pattern in the second section is now beginning to be visible.
For anyone who might be following my cycling progress, I actually have been getting some in since our move to Emporia. I’m not sure whether I have mentioned my 18-mile ride a few Saturdays ago with a group from my church. That stands as my longest ride so far. Boy, was I tired afterwards. I’ll take altitude over humidity any day for cycling.
Since then I’ve been trying to get out at least twice a week for a 10-miler. This morning I cut my time from over 50 minutes to 47 minutes, averaging about 13 mph, with max speed over 20 mph. It may not sound like much to real cyclists, but it’s a lot of progress for me.
We are meeting more and more people in town and from my congregation who cycle, so I think John’s hopes to put together a cycling group for families, focusing on children and teens, may get a lot of help.
John has been gathering the pieces for building a cross bike for me. That’s a bike that can be easily ridden on regular roads, but also on dirt and gravel that is not too rough. It’s a cross between a mountain bike and a road bike, thus “cross” bike. We left our real mountain bikes in New Mexico, so I need something here that will allow me to ride on some of the great park and forest paths that there are in Virginia.
Plus, of course, John has been itching to build another bike.
So far he has the frame, which is MUCH lighter than my current road bike, the wheels, which will have wider tires put on them than in the picture, and the handlebar. He’s become a real fan of e-bay where he has purchased these pieces for a fraction of the retail prices and he bought a good share of the parts for the super lightweight, very cool road bike that he recently built for himself.
I pretend to be interested in all these parts and pieces in the same way he pretends to be interested in my quilt pieces, knitting yarns and dyestuffs.
