Today is the day before packing day. Ken arrives tonight, and The Bike Rally leaves on Sunday morning, but tomorrow we take everything we need for the next week and pack it into two bins. The “rustlers” take the two bins and put them on a truck, and that truck goes ahead of us to where we’ll be stopping the first night. When you finish riding for the day (one presumes here you have made it to camp) you find your bins, and set up camp. Tomorrow I’ll give them my tent, sleeping bag, clothes – everything I’ll need to cycle the six days to Montreal.

This always causes me a ton of anxiety. All the riders really- it’s a little more complicated that it sounds – for starters there’s all the regular packing, plus camping packing, but also anything I give them tomorrow morning, I won’t have access to for 36 hours. This raises all sorts of regular person questions (like what does that mean for your toothbrush? Shoes? Wallet? What if you want to wear those shorts on packing day and day five?) but for a knitter, it seems extra complicated, doesn’t it? I can’t work on anything I decide to pack in my bins, but there’s still a whole day and night of knitting before I leave, and anything I work on tomorrow has to be left behind, and then there’s a whole day where I have to ride 100km to get to any knitting at all. (That happens every day, it’s a decent incentive.) I’m not a particularly monogamous knitter (okay not at all) but it still seems funny to leave something behind for a whole week. Won’t it be lonely for me?

Obviously I need yarn to knit on the Rally – while there’s not much time to knit there is evenings after dinner and a few rounds in the morning in my tent, just to centre myself. Once we’re in Montreal there’s more time to knit and then a long train ride home. My inner knitter says that means I need two sweaters worth and at least four balls of sock yarn, but I’ve been carrying around her stuff forever and she’s a terrible packer. I’m going ignore her and just take enough to make two pairs of socks – half of my stash of this years bike rally yarn from Indigodragonfly. (I’ve linked it there, if you want some, Kim, Ron and Victoria donate 25% of the proceeds to knitters riding, also it is gorgeous.) My urge is to take more, but I don’t think a sock a day is a realistic expectation under these circumstances. There’s that little voice that says “but what if?” but I’m going to try and be reasonable.

I’ve not wound the yarn, nor decided what pattern(s) I’ll make and I haven’t found needles yet, but what the hell, I have 14 hours so it’s cool. I’m only going to sleep for 8 of those. It will be fine. I haven’t packed anything else either. I still need to find all my stuff, the clothes on the line need to dry, there’s a toothpaste crisis I need to solve – I’m nervous about all of it and it’s making me procrastinate. I can’t pack incorrectly if I don’t pack, right? Yeah. I know.

In the meantime, let’s do some Karmic Balancing gifts, shall we? It’s a good distraction, at least for me. (If you missed the explanation of how this works, you can check it out at the bottom of this post.) Here we go!

First -something a little bit different, a little less random than our Karmic Balancing magic usually is. Abigail knit this beautiful Short Rose shawl out of the  Indigodragonfly 2020 Pedal Pushers colorway and she’s willing to send it away to it’s forever home. It’s too beautiful to choose a name at random – it should be with someone who really loves it. If that’s you, think up the donation you’d like to make for it, and email me at stephanieATyarnharlotDOTca I’ll look over all the offers and be in touch.

Next! Jennifer has a copy of Sequence Knitting to send out – this is a fascinating book, and it will be going to live with Kristen S. Thanks Jennifer!

Allison went into her stash and came out with this, a beautiful kit from the Unique Sheep for the Guernsey Garden Cowl.

Allison will be sending that off to Jaemi F, and I hope they love it.

Allyson has one for the spinners! 100% merino from Koigu,

she’ll be popping that in the mail to LeAnn S.

Kate has not one but three gifts of sock yarn to send to their new and happy homes:

This skein of Regia Premium Merino Yak is for Paula F.

This beautifully watery skein of Lisa Souza deluxe sock is for Vicky H.

and last but not least, this beautiful skein of Cascade Heritage sock will be socks on the needles of Eva D.

Two pretty skeins from Eliza! One of Red Sock Blue Sock Yarn Co’s sock yarns in “Queenie” for Latifa D,

and this skein of SweetGeorgias Tough Love Sock will be winging their way to Chris I.

Linda is somehow finding a way to part with this skein from Gauge Dye Works – she’ll be sending it to Madelyn.

Meanwhile Sandie has two skeins to be gifts as well. They’re both from Farmer’s Daughter Sock Squad – this pretty one is for Grace T.

and this glorious skein is going to Katie D.

Finally – last but certainly not least, Amy Snell (talented designer and friend of the show) would like to give away TEN patterns. Knitter will choose from her whole independent library and let Amy know which one they would love. You can see all her patterns here on Payhip, or here on Ravelry . Carol G, Karen B, Ruth Ann H, Michelle C, Esther R, Jessica N, Ruth V, Victoria P, Spring D, Susan G, and Ashley A will have a very hard time deciding!

That’s it for today, there’s more in the hopper but I have to bring the laundry in and really make a start on packing. I’ve emailed all the lucky knitters who’s names were drawn, so check your inboxes. As always, thank you for all each of you does to support the Bike Rally. We are so grateful for you.

Team Knit is:

Me

Cameron

Ken