Wordless Wednesday

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Another 3,000-mile Smile

In the bag! Four months earlier than last year!

This magnificent milestone also commemorates my renewed Pikes Peak goal. On Labor Day, I received an email from the Assault on the Peak director announcing, yes, there will be another chance in 2012.

I had half-heartedly committed to next year's ride, provided it is offered, when Titanium said she'd like to climb a peak with me while The Lizard runs laps around us. When I learned with three weeks to go the ride was shortened by an hour, my heart sank. How could I expect others to join me when I wasn't even sure I could do it myself? When I came up five minutes short (by my cyclocomputer, but only three minutes short when the official results were posted) at the Glen Cove cutoff on this year's attempt, I didn't know if I wanted to try again. It's just too hard, I thought. I'm just not strong enough.

But I die hard. In every aspect of life. The ride director might as well have thrown a gauntlet at my feet. This year, I thought I needed to be 15 minutes faster. Next year, I have to be an hour faster than I was this year.

I don't know if it's doable, but I'm going to give it my best shot. My targeted training for next year began the day after Labor Day. I climbed the stairs (60 flights) the next day for the first time since about March, and I did them non-stop. That's the first time I've ever been able to do the stairs non-stop after a three-week or longer break. My goal is Pikes Peak, but my lifetime ambition is to not lose what I've built up since February. My lifetime goal is to keep fighting the diabetic tendencies and genes for as long as I can. My lifetime goal is to combat the arthritis with everything I've got.

PS: The date for next year's ride has not been announced. This year, it conflicted with the final stage of the USA Pro Cycling Challenge. The road up Pikes Peak will be completely paved next year. Wouldn't it be awesome if the Assault on the Peak incorporates a pro race during the 2012 USA Pro Cycling Challenge (which really, really, really needs to be called the Tour of Colorado!!!), and we citizens get to ride the mountain the same day as the pros, just like the Mount Evans Hillclimb?!? You big guys think you can climb big mountains??? We've got a big mountain for you!!

I think I'll be playin' that Aerosmith oldie but goody now. "Dream on, dream on, dream on, dream on!"

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Snowflake Monday

Last week I hit my 3,000th mile on my bicycle since January 1 just as I crossed under the Oxford bridge on my way home from work. Oxford the street was named after a Colorado 14er named after a university.

When I first decided to name snowflakes after our fourteeners, I vowed the five Collegiate Peaks would be reserved for new techniques, things I've never done before, things I'd have to learn.

So somewhere along the way, I will learn to tat, and my first tatted snowflake will be named after a Collegiate Peak. I already know how to knit, but I've never knitted a snowflake, and I expect that will be quite the learning experience, hopefully resulting in yet another Collegiate Peak snowflake. I have a couple more ideas up my sleeve for the remaining two Collegiate Peaks.

For Oxford, I did something I've wanted to try for years but never had the guts to do until I reached 3,000 miles in eight months and eight days. I made snowflakes with size 30 and size 50 thread.

And then... gulp...


I made a snowflake with sewing thread. (Insert photo here of me with every hair on my body standing on end, as if I put my finger in a socket.)

I used size 20 thread for the first time ever twice last year, but not for snowflakes. I wanted to see how small a thread bear I could make, and the project was daunting. I lost the ears twice before I got them attached. Small thread frightened the daylights out of me.

My dear friend Shonna, who completed her valiant battle with ovarian cancer in January, gave me a sack full of thread much smaller than I'd ever used when she reached the stage she could no longer do threadwork. Ever since January, I've wanted to dig into that bag to prove she didn't waste her treasures by entrusting them to me.

My Mount Oxford Snowflakes are the result of finally developing a handful of fortitude. And guess what? It wasn't so bad! I definitely will be using size 30 and size 50 thread and my smallest hook again. Small sizes of crochet thread do not intimidate me anymore. (The jury is still out on sewing thread; pinning that microscopic flake was a chore and not a highly recommended project if you're seeking joy and relaxation.) I hope I've made Shonna smile. I'm smiling right now, picturing her giggling over my long-awaited teensy snowflakes.

Mount Oxford, at 14,153 feet, is the 26th highest Colorado 14er. Typically, climbers summit 50-foot higher Mount Belford first, then walk the 1.2-mile ridge to get to Oxford. Some climb 100-foot lower Missouri Mountain on the same trip, too. I’ve wanted to visit the basin below the three summits in winter for many years because it reportedly is a great place to view ptarmigans in their white plumage. When I finally do get to make that trip, I hope I can claim at least one of the summits, too. But I’d be happy with just a memory card full of ptarmigan photos!

Josiah Whitney, for whom the California 14er was named, began the tradition of naming peaks after great universities during an 1869 survey of the Sawatch Range, which includes the mountains now known as the Collegiate Peaks. Because his party was under the sponsorship of Harvard and his partners in climb were students there, he gave the Ivy League name to the highest peak they could see when the range first came into view. Mount Harvard is the third highest peak in Colorado. Whitney’s students in turn named nearby Yale for Whitney’s own alma mater.

Albert Ellingwood, a noteworthy historical mountaineer with two dominant and picturesque 14er features bearing his name, climbed a remote Collegiate Peak with lawyer Stephen Harding Hart in 1925. Both had attended Oxford, and that’s how the mountain got its name. I was thrilled to discover this tidbit in a 2003 issue of The Colorado Lawyer because many websites with partial details of the history behind the Collegiate Peaks claim no one knows how Oxford got its name. The footnotes for the trade journal include a book published by the Colorado Mountain Club. Information often is out there. You just have to be willing to look for it.

You may do whatever you'd like with snowflakes you make from this pattern, but you may not sell or republish the pattern. Thanks, and enjoy!



Finished Size: 4.25 inches from point to point (size 10 thread), 3 inches from point to point (size 50) thread; 2 inches from point to point (sewing thread)
Materials: Size 10 crochet thread, size 8 crochet hook; OR size 30 crochet thread OR size 50 crochet thread, size 10 crochet hook; OR, if you are nuts like me, sewing thread, size 12 crochet hook; empty pizza box, wax paper or plastic wrap, cellophane tape, glue, water, glitter, small container for glue/water mixture, paintbrush, stick pins that won't be used later for sewing, clear thread or fishing line

Mount Oxford Snowflake Instructions

Make magic ring.

Round 1: Ch 2 (counts as 1 dc), 1 dc in ring, *ch 3, 2 dc in ring; repeat from * 4 times; ch 1, 1 dc in 2nd ch of starting ch 2 (ch 1 and dc counts as final ch 3). Pull magic circle tight.
If you're not reading this pattern on Snowcatcher, you're not reading the designer's blog. Please go here to see the original.

Round 2: Ch 2 (counts as 1 dc), 1 dc in same sp, ch 10, 2 dc in same sp, *2 dc in next ch 3 sp, ch 10, 2 dc in same sp; repeat from * around 4 times; sl st in 2nd ch of starting ch 2.

Round 3: 1 sc between last 2/dc group just completed on Round 2 and ch2/1dc group of sl st just completed (in essence, you're working the sc over the sl st just completed), *ch 7, 3 dc in next ch 10 sp, ch 10, 3 dc in same sp, ch 7, 1 sc between next 2/dc groups; repeat from * around 5 times, omitting last sc of final repeat; sl st in starting sc; bind off. Weave in ends.

NOTE: I did another new thing with these snowflakes and tried the stiffening method many others have recommended for years – squishing the snowflakes around in a sandwich bag with glue and a few drops of water, then getting my fingers very messy pinning the flakes on my pizza boxes. This method seems much more efficient than painting glue on with a paintbrush, particularly when making such tiny flakes. However, I’m one who does not like to get my fingers and fingernails dirty. So I don’t know yet if I’ll use this method often.

Finish: Tape wax paper or plastic wrap to top of empty pizza box. Pin snowflake to box on top of wax paper or plastic wrap.

Mix a few drops of water with a teaspoon of glue in small washable container. Paint snowflake with glue mixture. Sprinkle lightly with glitter. Wash paintbrush and container thoroughly. Allow snowflake to dry at least 24 hours. Remove pins. Gently peel snowflake from wax paper or plastic wrap. Attach 10-inch clear thread to one spoke, weaving in end. Wrap fishing line around tree branch (or tape to ceiling or any overhead surface) and watch the snowflake twirl freely whenever you walk by! Snowflake also may be taped to window or tied to doorknob or cabinet handle.

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Friday Funny

This is not something I wanted to share. But The Lizard said I must. He said it made him laugh. Hard.

Many people have inquired how I could possibly ride to work and concentrate much less endure a cubicle day sweaty and chamoised. More importantly, how do my co-workers tolerate the sights and aroma of my 30 gnat-littered miles morning after morning?

The office where I work has a workout facility, showers and locker rooms. Thank heavens!!! I have a locker. I keep spare clothes there to change into on the days I ride. We have a place to hang our own personal towels to dry. We have a place to store our own personal shampoo and other necessities. So I do get to clean up each day before my co-workers must put up with me for eight hours straight.

And now comes the latest entry into my top ten Life's Most Embarrassing Moments list. I really do not want to disclose this. Lizard, are you SURE you want me to do this???

Lizard: Do it!

Two weeks before Pikes Peak, I hit the bike path hard. I rode almost every day, and I pushed as hard as I could. I stood on my bike climbing the hills. I tried to set a new personal record each day. I pretended one day to be on a single speed and never dropped down into an easier gear. I made my thighs burn. Stealing a line from an unknown source, I did not sweat. I leaked. But that's not THE embarrassing thing. Although it was...

On Friday, I took all the locker clothes home for a good cleaning. It was time. The following week was vacation. “Vacation, all I ever wanted!!!” On Monday I successfully pedaled the mountain bike up Mount Evans. On Wednesday, The Lizard and I both pedaled up Cottonwood Pass to watch the Queen’s Stage of the USA Pro Cycling Challenge, which was, by the way, the most fun I've ever had on a bicycle. That night, the two-week-old new brakes failed again on the way home from Buena Vista. Thursday, I spent an entire day of vacation waiting for the brakes and everything to which they are connected to be replaced yet again. Friday, with less than 50 miles on the new brakes, they failed again. Vacation foiled.

There wasn’t time to get them replaced again before Pikes Peak. We got our bikes to Colorado Springs, we rode, we came home. The following Monday, I returned to work after a week away and after taking the car in yet again and venting a bit about trust and other related issues after losing three sets of brand new brakes, drums and cylinders in two months.

This time, the shop used factory parts instead of after-market parts. This time, the car took two days to get repaired, so I couldn’t ride again on Tuesday. This time, the car actually felt like a new car when I picked it up! This time, I had confidence the brakes might last another 50,000 or more miles.

On Wednesday, I got on that bike and pedaled joyfully because the car seems to be fine, I don’t HAVE to train furiously, and because the weather was beautiful. I could ride because I wanted to ride. I could ride because I love to ride. I didn’t have to get ready for anything!

Well, except work, once I arrived at the office. I went upstairs to shower and discovered an empty locker. I had nothing to change into but a beach towel. With half an hour to be at my desk.

Fortunately, this story does have a happy ending. One of my co-stairclimbers let me borrow the outfit she keeps at work for just in case. And I have learned to never, ever, not in a million years, ever take my spare clothes home to wash before a vacation. I’ve learned my memory shouldn’t really be trusted after I’ve been at altitude one too many times!

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I hate grasshoppers

Write it on the blackboard 100 times. Then go and stomp on a bunch.

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Wordless Wednesday

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Discovery

I spent a couple of hours searching nearly every unpacked box in the house looking for a notebook binder of CDs I'd burned before my pre-millennium computer bonked for good. We’d moved into our house two years earlier, at the beginning of cycling season. For whatever multiple reasons, we still have yet to unpack. So searches such as this have become commonplace.

I needed a very old photo, pre-digital, and I hoped it might be on one of the hundred or so CDs I cranked out of my old Gateway before it breathed its last breath. I didn't want to search 16 boxes of photos if the one I needed had never been scanned. I didn't have time for that, and I didn't want to open the cans of worms some of the old photos might contain. Going through old photos often brings out a few long-forgotten emotions.

Finally, I was down to one unopened box. Labeled "winter," this huge box could not contain the CD binder. No way. I had packed this box in another lifetime, before I even owned a Gateway computer. Yet I opened the box anyway. It was the final box yet to be opened from any of my moves in the past... maybe three decades, I suspected.


Fleece, blankets, coats, Christmas fabric, more fleece and more Christmas fabric. Wow, I forgot I'd bought all that fabric after Christmas one year. Long, long ago. Back when I still had little ones at home for whom I could make quilts.

The bottom layer on the box almost glowed. Radiant in being found, it reached into the deepest, darkest corner of my mind and yanked me back to the day I packed the box.

Yes, that particular packing day was traumatic, but this find made up for all the heartrending memories. There at the bottom of the box was the collection of snowflake fabric I'd begun as a teenager. I'd started a snowflake quilt before adopting my first child, then worked on it again after adopting a second. Every once in a while, life would slow down just enough for me to finish off one more square, then back in the bag the project would go, awaiting the next morsel of free time. This went on for years. Then both kids ran away. Everything got packed up so my townhome could be sold.


That was eight years ago. I have searched for that snowflake fabric many times since then. I wanted to finish the quilt I'd started. I wanted to make a tree skirt. I wanted to embark upon all kinds of snowflake fabric projects. I’d added more blue snowflake fabric to my collection each January as it went on clearance. But that initial stack, the fabrics comprising so many of my early years, was nowhere to be found.

Until I needed an old photo!

After this year's race to finish a small snowflake quilt for the Denver National Quilt Festival, I'd decided I would take a month off from quilting, then start on next year's entry so I wouldn't be cramming at the last minute again. I had a few ideas. I bought a bit more fabric. Snowflakes, however, continued calling to me. I still longed to finish that old quilt.


Once I found my treasure lost, I couldn’t wait to get started. But cycling season had taken control of my life. I worried the fabric might get lost again, for maybe another decade, if I didn’t keep it out right in the open, where I could see it on the rare occasions when I was home before bedtime.

While training for Pikes Peak, I dreamed one night I made it to the top, and I was surrounded by media microphones and cameras. “What are you going to do now, Ms. Lanterne Rouge?” they all inquired, Super Bowl- and World Series-styled, expecting a Disneyland reply.

“I’m going to finish a quilt!” I excitedly beamed.

Now the two fantasies trade places. Pikes Peak goes back in the dream pile, and the snowflake quilt comes out for a jaunt to a finish line of its own. I’m hoping to finish this baby up before Christmas.

Oh, and I found the CD binder, too. Safely stored beneath the bed, right where it should have been. The photo I needed was in there. So all the rest of our boxes get to stay packed. For now.

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Snowflake Monday

One Saturday this month, The Lizard and I are hoping to climb Tabeguache Peak with our good friends Mike and Mike, who have climbed several 14ers with us. The four of us haven't done a peak together since Humboldt in 2008, and Tabeguache has eluded three of us at least two times each.

Tabeguache, pronounced Tăb-ĕh-wătch with the accent on the first syllable, is connected to another 14er we've each climbed at least twice: Shavano, pronounced Shă-vă-nō, accent all three syllables. The two summits are separated by a half-mile-long narrow saddle ridge that isn't necessarily dangerous or difficult, but typically extremely windy. Each time we went up 14,229-foot Shavano, we hoped to bag 14,155-foot Tabeguache too, but The Lizard is the only one of us who had the energy and necessary speed to tag both summits in one trip. By attempting this dual summit again in September, we're hoping weather won't be a threat as it traditionally is throughout thunderstorm-prone summer months.

Tabeguache is a Ute word meaning People of Sun Mountain. The Tabeguache Ute Indians nomadically wandered central southwestern Colorado. They incorporated the name Tava, which means sun and also referred to Pikes Peak before it was named by white man. The Tabeguache Utes annually migrated to high elevations in summer and returned to lower elevations in fall, just like the elk. Many of the routes they used are now highways. The Utes knew Colorado well and knew which mountain passes were best for long-distance travel.

Tabeguache also is the name of a primitive 142-mile trail connecting the cities of Montrose and Grand Junction. The trail begins in Shavano Valley and weaves through canyons, mesas, and highlands of the Uncompahgre Plateau before ending in No Thoroughfare Canyon, which The Lizard and I have hiked together.

The Tabeguache Trail is dotted with highly photographic red beds, sedimentary rocks including sandstone, shale and siltstone characteristic of the Canyonlands of Utah. The rocks get their red hue from ferric oxides. Because I am photographically addicted to red rock, I had to make one of these snowflakes in Sara's Colorwaves colorway by the name of "redbeds."

After working up the prototype of this snowflake, I decided I wanted the second row to be a little fancier, so I incorporated a few changes. After pinning and stiffening both flakes, I decided I like the original better, so I'm including both options in this pattern.

The multi-snowflake Pikes Peak project is still forthcoming; it's just taking a while. Just like the mountain...

You may do whatever you'd like with snowflakes you make from this pattern, but you may not sell or republish the pattern. Thanks, and enjoy!


Original Version


Second Version
Finished Size: 4 inches from point to point
Materials: Size 10 crochet thread, size 8 crochet hook, empty pizza box, wax paper or plastic wrap, cellophane tape, glue, water, glitter, small container for glue/water mixture, paintbrush, stick pins that won't be used later for sewing, clear thread or fishing line

Tabeguache Peak Snowflake Instructions

Make magic ring.

Round 1: Ch 4 (counts as 1 dc and ch 1), *1 dc in ring, ch 1; repeat 10 times for a total of 12 dc, sl st in 3rd ch of starting ch 4. Pull magic circle tight, but leave opening big enough to allow stitches inside it to lay flat.

Round 2, original version: Ch 2 (counts as 1 dc), 1 dc in same ch 1 sp, *ch 4, 2 dc in next ch 1 sp; repeat from * around 10 times; ch 2, 1 dc in 2nd ch of starting ch 2 (dc and ch 2 count as final ch 4 sp).

Round 2, second version: Ch 2 (counts as 1 dc), 1 dc in same ch 1 sp, *[ch 3, 1 sc in 2nd ch from hook, ch 2, 1 sc in 2nd ch from hook, ch 2, 1 sc in 2nd ch from hook, ch 1], 2 dc in next ch 1 sp, ch 4, 2 dc in next ch 1 sp; repeat from * around 4 times; repeat [ ] one time, 2 dc in next ch 1 sp, ch 2, 1 dc in 2nd ch of starting ch 2 (dc and ch 2 count as final ch 4 sp).
If you're not reading this pattern on Snowcatcher, you're not reading the designer's blog. Please go here to see the original.

Round 3: Ch 2 (counts as 1 dc), 1 dc in same sp, *ch 3, 1 dc in 3rd ch from hook, ch 3, 2 dc in 3rd ch from hook, ch 3, 1 dc in 3rd ch from hook, sk next ch 4 sp if working original version, 2 dc in next ch 4 sp; repeat from * around 5 times, omitting last 2 dc of final repeat; sl st into 2nd ch of starting ch 2.

Round 4: Ch 2 (counts as 1 dc), 1 dc in next dc, *ch 3, 1 dc between next ch3/1dc cluster (photo 1), ch 3, 1 dc in 3rd ch from hook, 2 dc in top of next ch 3/2dc cluster (photo 2), ch 4, sl st in top of dc just worked, 1 dc in same st as previous 2 dc, ch 3, 1 dc in 3rd ch from hook, 1 dc between ch3/2dc cluster and next ch 3/1dc cluster (photo 3), ch 3, 1 dc in each of next 2 dc; repeat from * around 5 times, omitting last 2 dc of final repeat; sl st into 2nd ch of starting ch 2; bind off. Weave in ends.


Photo 1


Photo 2


Photo 3

Special thanks to The Lizard for photographing my hands for this tutorial.

Finish: Tape wax paper or plastic wrap to top of empty pizza box. Pin snowflake to box on top of wax paper or plastic wrap.

Mix a few drops of water with a teaspoon of glue in small washable container. Paint snowflake with glue mixture. Sprinkle lightly with glitter. Wash paintbrush and container thoroughly. Allow snowflake to dry at least 24 hours. Remove pins. Gently peel snowflake from wax paper or plastic wrap. Attach 10-inch clear thread to one spoke, weaving in end. Wrap fishing line around tree branch (or tape to ceiling or any overhead surface) and watch the snowflake twirl freely whenever you walk by! Snowflake also may be taped to window or tied to doorknob or cabinet handle.


Redbeds

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Friday Funny

This guy is good.

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Apple of My Eye

What do you do when your Ravelry Starfleet Fiber Arts Corps ship is traveling to Deep Space Nine, and one of your assignments is to create a wormhole (such as a cowl or fingerless gloves) when you're busy preparing for the biggest ride of your life?

You create a wormhole, of course.


What do you do while pedaling up Cottonwood Pass to prevent upcoming big ride nervousness from sabotaging your training?

You design an apple in your head to encase said wormhole, of course.


What do you do in the car to keep from nervously fidgeting wildly while your husband drives to the biggest ride of your life?

You crochet said apple, of course.


What do you do when you can't sleep on the eve of the biggest ride of your life?

You crochet a worm to fill the wormhole, of course.

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