Sunshine and Fireworks

Today we had a lovely sunny day, so I pulled my camera out for some pictures. First up, I finally managed some decent images of the lovely Ocean Rain yarn I finished in February:

I am incredibly happy with how it turned out, and it makes me happy to see it up on my yarn wall. I feel like it adds some much needed contrast to all the redder yarns and serves as a good anchor between the “red” and “blue/purple” sides of the wall.

Next up: progress on my Fireworks Festival shawl!

I find knitting brioche pretty absorbing, so I have been making good progress, at least for a brioche shawl in fingering singles on small needles. I am on 3/3 “lights” charts, which felt like a bigger accomplishment until I looked at images of the shawl again and realized how far is left to go with all the fireworks charts. Of course, if I just took a look at how much yarn is still in the first 2 of my 4 cakes, it would be evident there is a long way left too…

In moving pictures from my camera to my ipad, I discovered that I’m behind on showing off my Clan of Igor yarns. I’ve already received March (which I won’t show yet until Undercover Otter, the dyer, posts pictures), and hadn’t even shown you February yet:

It arrived in a flat cardboard box, untwisted with the label sitting on top. A little DIY of yarn skein assembly. I honestly didn’t mind this one bit, and the colors of the yarn shine through much better in the loose hank than a twisted one. It’s been hanging up on my yarn wall and each time I look over, I think “meh, not sure what I’ll do with that…” and then I finally pulled the pictures I took in daylight off my camera, looked at them and remembered “oh right, it’s a pretty cool colorway!” Still not sure what I’ll do with it yet. I’m kinda thinking combine it with a solid (maybe a lavender/grey?) The colorway is called “Budget Cuts”.

Since it seems possible that I won’t make it to any yarn festivals this year, I’m glad I didn’t talk myself out of trying out a yarn subscription this year. Both of the festivals in the area we were thinking about trying to get to have been cancelled due to Covid-19. We are up to a few hundred confirmed cases in and around Berlin, so we spent this morning finishing up our food and provisions preparations. TheEnabler has been instructed to work from home, and I already work out of a home office. Our goal is to go out as little as possible (well, we hope to keep doing walks in the park, but that’s an open uncrowded space) to help reduce the risk of catching and further spreading it, especially since we can stay home and away from crowded places. Each person not in a public space leaves more room between those who do have to be out and about, reducing transmission risks. I know, for example, how much I appreciated the reduced traffic on snow days when I still had to get in my car and drive to work because they almost never closed. Even if going in still felt stressful, it was much much safer when I didn’t have to struggle to keep a safe stopping distance between myself and the few other cars still on the road.

We started picking up a few extras each time we shopped beginning a couple weeks ago, a necessity since we have to carry everything home and this limits how much we can get at any one time. Still, we did a more extensive run today, visiting both our “normal” grocery store and the organic one we typically get to about once a month. Luckily we’d grabbed a little extra toilet paper last week, since there was none to be had today.  In addition to wanting to be prepared in the event we do get sick and have to self-quarantine, we needed extra food-stuffs because we’ll need to make lunch now that the university cafeteria will be closed and I have no intention of eating instant ramen every day for lunch for the foreseeable future.

Whew! Almost done this post. It took extra time to write due to unusually high levels of cat interference. Every time I pulled out my computer, kitty cuddles were demanded (and she climbs into my lap in such an adorable way, how can I refuse?) and when she tired of that, she switched to meowing for play time from the other room each time I sat down on the couch to give typing another go. I would think she was safely out on the porch, distracted by people watching, but nope. Even now she’s back in my lap and I’m finishing up this last bit by typing in a highly non-ergonomic way.

Oh yeah, I made extra sure to get plenty of cat food. And fresh cat litter. We do not need to run out of that if we’re stuck inside for a couple weeks!