Stitchpop

Do you know what today is?

Today, I and other cycling widows and Tour followers worldwide will cast on (in the round, most likely) to knit tirelessly and heroically for the next 23 days in the Purl de France.

In fact, if Phil Ligget were commentating the event:

As much as knitting can be considered a solitary undertaking, it is also a team endeavor, with each of us driving our colleagues on, fighting back fatigue for the sake of arriving at the next stage, handing off our needles when we can no longer summon the spark that ignites in us the need to feel thin yarn transformed beneath our fingers into lengths of fabric. When it seems that there can be no hope of pushing off one more stitch in the exhaustion of the moment, it is at that moment that we can expect to see another knitter holding the skein in a show of solidarity.

Really the question becomes whether we knit to arrive at the top of the mountain, to wave aloft another finished object in triumph, or whether the victory lies in the passage of the journey itself.

Join me, won't you? Together we'll dig deep into the suitcase of courage commonly reserved for the most elite among us, drawing forth the wherewithall to complete row after row. From the time when the first stitch is turned in anger until the finish line looms clear on the horizon.