No wonder

Winter seems to have arrived in my neighborhood, or at least it is now consistently below freezing every night in the long range forecast. And after a long relatively warm fall the sudden drop in temps is down right COLD. I actually had ice in my recently emptied water garden containers late this afternoon. (Okay so it rained after I emptied them last week.)

Despite the brilliant blue skies this afternoon, I actually hauled in the planted containers that overwinter in my unheated garage. It is detached from the house so it does get cold, but the plants don't have the temperature shocks of being in the sun and then below freezing temps. It's a block garage and it just seems to stay a fairly consistent temp all winter. The plants live and their clay pots don't break, so I'm happy.

I just looked at the thermometer in the master bedroom and it says that the room is 74 deg F. I know that thermostat downstairs is set for 70. But the upstairs got new thermal paned, tight fitting Pella windows when I renovated it about 9 years ago, so it stays much warmer. No wonder I like working up here.

And the work on UFOs continues. I've been making real progress on the top down sweater from Knitting Classic Style. This is the cover sweater, and I happen to have about 30,000 yards of undyed chunky yarn from the family sheep. Yes this is more than 17 miles of yarn. I need to find more patterns for this weight... Or I need to felt whole flocks of sheep.

Also working on my braided hat from Bijou Basin. Oddly enough the only modification I've made was to graft together the ends of the braid that forms the band. Yes, it was fiddly, and probably a bit anal on my part but there will be no sewn seam on this hat. It feels warm in my hands. And that's pretty nice right now. I really should take some more pictures and post them.