Loose Threads

While looking through a little Moleskin notebook in my purse, I found this sketch, from earlier in the winter, done in a waiting room. I like the way it captures something about winter life here in Montreal. The Burmese mountain dog was a guide-dog-in-training, and the young woman seated beyond him was his trainer. He's get up, look around, and then calmly lie down agian, settling his head onto the floor with a resigned sign. I like her layers of wooly sweaters, her oversized satchel, and her fur-lined Sorels. All pretty true to life.

While we're on the subject of things wooly and warm, this hat was my knitting project during the Olympics; I finished it last night. It's a super-easy pattern from The Purl Bee, adapted by me for knitting with two unequal weight yarns - a lightweight brown alpaca and a midnight blue lace-weight merino, both odds and ends from my knitting basket. The resulting hat, knit in a K1 P1 rib, is very stretchy and I think it will even fit underneath my bike helmet for early spring biking, if the snow ever departs!

Speaking of which, the basil is up, and already thinned to one plant per pot!

But by and large I haven't been very productive lately, for a variety of reasons. I'm hoping to get back into the swing of it soon.