Les Champs-Elysées: the finish line

It's been a long time since I enjoyed a Tour de France quite so much as I did this year.  For sure, there were a few dark clouds (but considering that there were over 700 anti-doping controls, and only three riders thrown out, that's not bad, and gives me hope), but for the most part, it was a great race to watch each and every day.

And it's been great to watch what's been going on in the Tour de Fleece this year, too -- thank you for sharing your spinning with me, it's been a great inspiration -- but more on that tomorrow, for now, I want to hand out the maillots!

If you reached your goal, then please take one of the yellow jersey images below -- I've asked the tech guy to write some information on how that's done, and if you have any techie questions for him, please leave them in the comments.

Now -- let's say you didn't quite make it to your goal.  This happens.  Life is busy, stuff happens, and sometimes despite the best of intentions, we just can't do what we'd planned.  If that happened to you, and you know that you tried your hardest, then please take a red jersey -- that's the Prix de la Combativité, a little jersey I made up based on the prize that's handed out at the end of each day's stage for the rider who was the most combative, who tried something, who really pushed his limits. Did you try, did you push your limits, but you just didn't quite make it?  Then take the red jersey.

And now, I'm going to go watch the re-broadcast of this morning's stage, just to relive that great final sprint through Paris.  I felt a huge whallop of nostalgia this morning, following the cameras through familiar streets and around familiar places, but I hope the Universe will see fit to send me back one day.  Preferably at the end of July, so I can enjoy another arrival of the Tour!

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To display your Tour de Fleece Maillot Jaune 2008 or Prix de la Combativité 2008 badge on your blog or website, please download a copy of the image file of your choice to your computer and then upload it to the server that hosts your blog or website -- please don't just link to the image file here.

To download the image file, if you're on a Windows PC right-click on the one you want to download and from the pop-up menu select "Save Target As...", "Save Link As...", "Save Image As..." or something similar (depending on which browser you are using).  For Mac users, if you have a single-button mouse, you will need to Alt-click to get the pop-up menu and select the appropriate "Save ___ As..." item (sorry I can't be more precise, just doing this from memory...) from the menu.

Once you have saved it to your PC or Mac (you did remember to make note of which folder you saved it to, right?), upload the image file to your blog or website as you would any picture or image file.

There are two sizes of images provided, depending on how much space you have to fit it into -- choose whichever size of the badge you've earned fits best, and if you want to use both sizes please feel free to download both.

Here are the badges:

   

   

Comments

[caroline]

thank you katherine for a fabulous tour! i accomplished my challenge and finished all of my started spinning projects. i have 2 1/2 lbs of yarn and all my bobbins are empty. i was also encouraged to start and maintain a blog to document my journey.
my spinning definitely improved and i gained invaluable knowledge about the process. now to keep up a reasonable pace!

[anj]

Thank you for hosting this these past few yrs. This is the first time since the first yr I participated that I accomplished my goal. I can't wait to knit the sock yarn I spun!!! This little Tour always kick starts my spinning again. Thank you!!!

[Nancy K.]

I think that I posted this comment to the wrong post, so I'm copying and pasting it here as well:

Thank you so much for sharing the Tour De Fleece with us! It inspired me to get back into spinning on a regular basis. My goal was vague enough that I really didn't have to "finish" anything ~ rather just get back into the habit of spinning. And at that I feel I've succeeded. The last bobbin of my red yarn appears to be a bit of a disaster (see today's blog post) but I've not given up yet! And I'm still working on my carding and then spinning for my Shetland version of the Modern Quilt Wrap.

This was GREAT FUN and I thank you very much. See you next year!

Nancy K
Bluff Country Shetlands
http://www.shepherdsvoice.blogspot.com

[laurie]

Adding my thanks too Katherine :) This was just what i needed at this time to get back into spinning
Merci Merci
Picturs on my blog :)
http://www.lauriedolan.blogspot.com

[Ali]

Thanks so much for organising this, and especially for the red jersey. I had surgery during the Tour, so I kind of missed my goal, but I tried. Spinning while on painkillers is an interesting experience though ;-)