Progress and Possibilities.

I meant to post this last weekend, and for some reason didn't.  This is the Caledonian Cardigan at the end of the first skein - almost finished Row 25:

Yarn is a one-off colourway by Forbidden Fiber.

I wound the second and am progressing, now at Row 27.

I spent some time today (meaning, last Sunday) looking at possible patterns for a set of yarn I received as a Hannukah Advent - and yes, "Advent" is Christian and really doesn't apply, but in the yarny world it has come to mean a set of small gifts you get and open each day of a holiday.  So there are ones for Christmas that run either four (for the four Sundays of Advent) or twenty-four (for the days in December leading up to Christmas) or twelve (for the days December 26th through January 6th = Epiphany), and a few years ago some dyers decided to make them for Channukah also.  So I took a chance on one where Nomadic Knits collaborated with Olive and Two Ewes.

The theme was a tea party (there is also one for Christmas), and the box was filled with wrapped items numbered 1 through 8, plus some bags of tea and a tea bag holder, and information cards.

I worried a bit when I opened the first bag to find a pink skein, as it's my least favourite colour, but the others work together nicely and the set includes a full-sized skein for Day 8:

  

The stitch markers just fit into the little jar; I had to get tweezers to pull them out.  One has a bead to denote "start of round" or any other time you need a special marker.

So I spent a bit of time today looking for a pattern.  The site has a list of suggestions but most don't use the whole set.  I found one I like, but I think it needs more contrast.

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It is a week later, and I am through the second skein of the Caledonian Cardigan, well into the body:

I have to decide whether I am OK with the yarn colours stacking the way they have done, or if I need to frog and see whether integrating a second skein will break it up more as it was on the yoke.  I may decide after seeing how the sleeves work out.  Now that the second skein is done, I am going to do those, and then all the remaining yarn can be the body.

I've finished the first library challenge book, "Read a Novel in Translation".  Since I started on Science Fiction Day, I selected Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon.  Very interesting to see what he got right given it was almost a century before space travel.

I am being wimpy in the mornings and not going for a walk until the temperature is out of the 30's(F), which means I often get a walk in the afternoon, if work allows and it's not storming.  When I lived up north, anything above freezing was worth a walk, and here I'm no longer that brave.  Or desperate to get out into the wintry sun.

It's a lot worse in many places, with NFL playoff games postponed and people joking about bringing in their brass monkeys and that the temperatures will drop from negative to imaginary numbers.  I always hope and pray that everybody who needs shelter in such bitterness will find it.