The Tour de France Knitalong, which runs concurrently with the bike race, has commenced, and I have decided on a knitting pattern:

4-Ever in Blue Jeans by Cally Monster

I knew I wanted to use some purple sparkly MadTosh Sock (colorway: Iris) Rudi gave me this winter for the solid color, and Rudi and I scoured my stash for something that would be a good contrast color.

Holi Festival, also by Madelinetosh, was, somewhat reluctantly, what I settled on. I think the white base is too white, and, frankly, I suspect the purple will run, which might be fine or not, depending on how it goes.

While looking for the right needles, I stumbled across a skein I’d started a sock in that seemed like it also might work. It has gotten separated somehow from its ballband, but I’m nearly positive it’s Araucania Itata Multy, a wool-silk-bamboo rayon blend. Because it contains silk, the kinkiness where I’d knit with it seems to have flattened this end of the yarn a bit, but where I haven’t worked it yet, it looks similar to the MadTosh.

I did a bit of a swatch:

The Holi Festival skein is used at the bottom and follows the pattern exactly, but it was making my swatch double in size, so I bound off all the extra stitches and sort of approximated things at the top for the Araucania just to get it done.

What do you guys think? In the morning I’ll rip out both and start knitting with my purple yarn. I’ll have a bunch of rows before I make a commitment for that second yarn, so feel free to weigh in if you have thoughts (including if your thought is to go stash diving again).

Whoops! This didn’t post last night. Anyway…

As we were walking home from the pool and the garden this afternoon, we noticed the storm clouds overtaking the sun in a dramatic fashion. This is taken from Massachusetts looking west over Embassy Row.

Within 20 minutes, the winds were approaching gale force and sheets of water were pouring from the sky, obscuring the buildings across the road from us, with loud cracks of thunder overhead. It was a delightful time to be inside, and I truly appreciated our cozy Burrow.

Rudi and I started off our weekend well with a surprising text from friends who were home and wondering if we wanted to see a film. We watched Echoes in the Canyon, a documentary by and starring Jakob Dylan about the early days of the music scene in Laurel Canyon in L.A., and then went out for drinks to catch up. It was a nice way to begin the weekend, and I hope it will continue pleasantly and include some of the following:

• Swimming.
• Watching the Tour de France and knitting. (More details on the latter tomorrow.)
• Following the World Cup final. I caught some of the opening round matches, so I think it might be okay if I watch Sunday’s, but if they start doing poorly, clearly I’ll have to abort the plan.
• Working on some job hunt-related things.
• Baking.
• Doing laundry.
• Planting beans and harvesting mint in the garden.
• Drinking home-brewed iced tea (Our current flavor is Hibiscus Raspberry Currant) in Arnold Palmers and maybe making daiquiris.
• Dancing to upbeat music. (I don’t do this often enough.)
• Phoning a couple friends to mark major life events.

How about you? What do you hope your weekend will hold?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. I’ve probably said this before, but I love seeing superhero movies on opening weekend, because there is an incredible vibe in the theater from people who love the genre and the format and who can’t wait to find out what this story holds for them. It’s like a communal form of reading. We caught Spiderman: Far from Home on Tuesday night at the Uptown and while it wasn’t a sold-out crowd, there were a lot of people there. And you could just tell that we were all excited to find out where Marvel was going to take us in our next adventures. This iteration of Spiderman is a sweet one and this was no exception, with Peter and his classmates off on a European summer trip in which Peter plans a romantic scenario to let M.J. know he’s in love with her. We aww’ed and we buzzed and we gasped at all the appropriate moments and generally left the theater pleased with the movie and our time together.

2. Like many cities, D.C. used to have a system of streetcars to transport people around the area. Dupont Circle was home to its only underground station, built in in 1949 and used for the next 13 years until the streetcars were taken offline in favor of buses. The station spent the next decade or so as a bomb shelter, but then was abandoned until the 1990s, when a developer — obviously a guy — thought a creepy underground murder tunnel would make an excellent food court. Unsurprisingly, it failed in spectacular fashion and remained boarded up and derelict until a couple years back, when it was turned into the occasional arts space. Friday morning, Rudi and I got our first chance to attend a free event there, and we were not disappointed with the ambience, which felt like a throwback to the slightly grittier neighborhood we’d moved into.

3. Yesterday I stopped by another local farmers market to return the flat and pint containers our cherries had come in to the farmer. They were selling delicious peach lemonade, which I enjoyed while walking to the pool.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

I didn’t knit at all this week. Mostly, I didn’t even take it with me. But the Tour de France (and its associated knitalong) starts up on Saturday, so I have been doing a lot of mulling over of patterns. A new shawl may be in the works come this time next week! Or, you know, something else entirely.

I did, however, read. And because I read, I took books back to the library and brought home new ones, including Casey McQuiston’s Red, White, and Royal Blue, which I started today in honor of the Fourth of July. It’s about the first female president’s son, who causes an international incident with an heir to the throne in a $75,000 scuffle at a Royal Wedding. I am entranced with both Alex and Henry and if I resurfaced for air after a kiss in the Rose Garden, well, let’s say it was just so I didn’t stay up all night reading straight through.

I’m also reading the Austen-inspired, Indian-American-centric Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors by Sonali Dev and listening to Daisy Jones & The Six, which read by a full cast (including some well-known voices) and which is the book equivalent of a Behind the Scenes special about a 1970s pop star and her band. It’s excellent help at distracting me while pitting a seemingly endless supply of cherries at the kitchen sink.

Head over to As Kat Knits to see what people who’ve actually been crafting this week have been working on.

Twilight
   ~Elfrida De Renne Barrow

Circled
To completion,
Dove-winged, the day pauses,
Fluttering along the star-edges
Of night.