dark and light

It's starting to feel properly wintry. I've been wearing my new LLBean down jacket to work, with a hat and gloves (especially on the days when I have to walk to the train station), and today was the Owl Sweater's first outing. Of course, because it's insanely warm, I didn't wear a real jacket with it. Mmmm owl sweater.

It's also now starting to get dark around 3:30. Twilight hits around then, and it's seriously dark a few minutes after 4. This was a picture I took on a bike ride over the summer. All the fields are ploughed and muddy now - the golden wheat has long been harvested.

Here is the sm. boy, with my current quilt-in-progress. It has now been sandwiched and quilted (with blue polka-dotted flannel backing), and the binding has been sewn to the front. I think I need about another 2 1/2 hours of hand-sewing the binding to the back and I'll be all done! Oh, and in case you were wondering, the binding is ORANGE. Like, really, really orange. It all looks rather awesome. You can't see from this picture, but the squares reading as black are actually brown with orange and blue swirls on them. A few Amy Butlers, an Ikea (the green critters), the last scrap of the sheep print from PurlSoho, a tiny piece of leftover Liberty, and some really fun Michael Miller Groovy Guitars.

I also have a small announcement to make: I think I might be a yarn snob. I stumbled upon a new yarn store today, which shall remain nameless to protect the guilty. I eagerly hopped into the store, to discover that it was ALL acrylic. No, wait, there was one very small rack of exceedingly scratchy 100% wool. Who knits with this stuff? And why? When there's so much amazing yarn out there? Shudder.

One more appeal to the interwebs - in last month's Martha Stewart Living they featured several entryway coat racks. I LOVE this one, but it's there and I'm here.

I can't find anything even vaguely similar over here - they're all either really twee or really industrial. Suggestions, Brits?