Spinning The Wheels

Last month we were lucky enough to see the Grand Depart of the Tour de France, in Yorkshire.  Hardly been off our bikes since. And the month has been more Tour de France than Tour de Fleece, round here.

I forgot all about this pattern, til today when, cycling along, I remembered I’ll need to knit some new fingerless gloves for cycling this winter. Here’s a simple (and free) pattern I did for the lovely Blacker Yarns website, a while back. It works very well using 2 balls of their Classic DK.

Handspinners can approximate DK, too – there’s not a lot of spinning in these. Cotton might work, for summer.

It’s based on the common Scottish (and Yorkshire) gansey motif called “flags”. The first gansey I ever knitted was a flags pattern. The flags motif was used in a pattern for a cycling jersey in M.Elliott Scrivenor’s 1903 “Knitting and Crochet Book”. Just as soon as I finish the handspun gansey pattern, due to be published in a certain rather sumptuous U.S magazine (will put up links when it’s out), I’m straight onto working on a vintage style cycling jersey. I’ve been poring over images of 1950s’ cycling jerseys – love everything about them. Will be fun trying to approximate something special (in merino?) for winter cycling.

And here’s a little cycling fashion piece I did for ‘citycycling’ ezine, a couple of years back. Cycling has a huge role in the history of feminism and women’s clothing, as it became a catalyst for women’s clothing to change and become pragmatic.

To finish, here’s a photo my son took at the Tour de France. A total fluke as he had to hold his phone over the crowds’ heads and had no clue who he’d captured (if any of the peloton). But he got the Stage 1 yellow jersey, Marcel Kittell and King of the Mountains Jens Voight. Red spotted jersey pattern?  Maybe not. The Edwardian Flags Cycling Gloves would look nice in yellow, though…