Fighting those negative temps, one muffin at a time

It's been damn cold up here lately. Temps below zero, with high winds that make the wind chill factor something you don't even want to think about.
On those kind of days, I like to stay indoors and invent ways to stay warm.
So, besides baking a 20+ lb turkey today, I turned this:

into this:
That was one of our wacky delicata pumpkin crosses - which started out green and white, and have turned green and orange in storage.
The muffins are pumpkin muffins with a cream cheese and streusel topping. I found a recipe out on the web and seriously tweaked it.
The picture shows the first dozen muffins. The recipe also made a dozen more. And there was still batter left over when the the cream cheese topping ran out - enough for 5 more muffins which got double streusel in order to use that up. (If I had only known, I might have cut the recipe in half...)
Madman gave them a serious thumbs-up - which is good, because we've got a lot of freakin' muffins...


ETA: OMG! I just tried one, myself. These are ridiculously good. I have to go right now and write down the changes I made before I forget. See ya!

I don't understand why he laughed at me.

We were discussing a TV show I'd been watching via the internet.
My comment:
"Gimme a break. They split up while chasing a shape-shifter. Everyone knows the first rule of chasing shape-shifters is 'Never Split Up.' "

Geometry is the only math I ever really understood...

I finished the first front for the sweater, and have cast on the second.

When this odd-shaped piece is blocked, it will be a half-hexagon. One of the things I really liked about this sweater is all the non-standard pieces. The back looks like a tall truncated triangle with a split at the bottom to insert the godet (a simple triangle), the sleeves are elongated hexagons, and the fronts are half-hexagons.
My geometry teacher would have been so proud.
Here's a close-up of the cabley action.

Assembling this beast is going to be a challenge. What fun!

Speaking of beasts, I'm very glad I went out a little early to feed the critters this afternoon. Fifteen minutes after I came in, I looked out the window at a complete white-out. It had only been spitting snow when I fed the sheep...

Minor setback in the knitting.

So I was knitting happily along on one of the fronts of the cabled coat, when I realized that I'd made an error with the decreases. I ripped back several inches, and reknit the section, only to realize that I hadn't made an error at all. So I had to rip back what I had just knit, and reknit again to get back to where I was in the first place.
At least I wasn't knitting both fronts at the same time...
*sigh*

There's a hole in my finger

Over the last few months I've been trying to tighten up my knitting a little bit. Nothing drastic, but a bit of slow change so that it will become a habit. (I'm tired of having to go down 2 needle sizes to get gauge, and I want to write more patterns for other people to knit without making myself crazy trying to figure out what size needle normal people would need.)
The down side is that I've discovered I have a bad habit of bracing the left needle point against my right index finger in order to push stitches up into working position. Now that they're tighter, I have to push harder. And the circ I'm using for my cabled coat is really really pointy.

I've poked a hole in my finger.

Partly cloudy, with extended periods of gloom

A little sunshine would be nice. Just for 5 minutes, that's all I ask. We've had nothing but cloudy, cloudy with snow, cloudy with sleet, cloudy with wind, cloudy cloudy cloudy. And gloom.
(The last sunny day I can remember was in early December. I'm not kidding.)

I was hoping for some light, to get a decent picture or two of the sheepies. We'll all have to settle for these, instead.
I took a raft of pictures, but I think my memory card is dying. All the photos with Onyx in them didn't save. (Poor Onyx. And she loves getting her picture taken...)

Here's Merlin, with Goldie peeking around him from a safe distance.

But I did get a good shot of Goldie, looking thoughtful. Or maybe just staring blankly. It's hard to tell with sheep.

Caught Merlin daydreaming...

And, since I've sorely neglected to take pictures of the bunnies, here's the girls:

That's Clover on the left, and Jane on the right. (And if you're wondering how I can tell the difference (or even if it matters) - Jane has a lazy left ear. It droops anytime she isn't 100% alert. (She's also shyer than Clover, but that's hard to tell from a picture.))
And here's our boy, Stiffler. He isn't really grumpy - he's just hopping forward to see if I'm going to give him some more hay.

And, of course, I have to give equal time to the chickens, or I'll never hear the end of it.


They do keep an eye on me...

Still making progress.

Though working is really cutting into my knitting time, sadly.
I've finished the sleeves. Yay for finishing the long slog of moss stitch.
Though seriously, I don't mind moss stitch, or its cousin seed stitch. Since I knit Continental, it's no harder to knit moss stitch (or ribbing either, for that matter) than it is to knit garter stitch.
If, at this moment, you're thinking "Oh, no! Continental purl is hard!", then you're obviously new around here, and have missed my previous rants.
If you think Continental purl is hard, then someone taught you wrong. Follow this link for Easy Continental purl, or just click on the Continental purl label over in my sidebar. Someday I'll do a video (if I can figure out how to hold the camera some other way than in my teeth...), but in the meanwhile I've got a short photo essay showing how easy the purl stitch is. (Do not be fooled by the arthritis-inducing contortionist version that will pop up in a Google search. That video is a cruel cruel joke.)
Okay, end rant.
So, the sleeves are done, and I've got one of the fronts underway. I would have liked to do both fronts at once, but at 260 stitches each, my needle just isn't long enough to accommodate that many stitches.
So, I'm back to the engaging cables. This sweater is just flying along.

And a random tip - I had to make two attempts at casting on those 260 stitches. The first time, I ran woefully short of tail in my longtail cast-on. So I started over, grabbing a second ball of yarn, tying a slip knot in the two ends, and using yarn from the second ball as the 'tail.' It means a couple extra ends to weave in, but that's still easier than making multiple runs at 260 stitches.