Snowed In

My neck of the woods is in the middle of a weather "situation".  Well, it's a situation as far as Illinois people are concerned.  I'm sure if there's anyone from Alaska or the colder parts of Canada reading this blog, they'd just refer to a day like today as "winter".  Anyway, it's been snowing since yesterday evening and we've probably accumulated around 6 inches so far.  Then tomorrow the high temperature is supposed to be almost 10 below with a -45 wind chill.  So it's one of those days where emergency services tell you to stay home unless you really, really need to leave the house.  School has already been called off for my kids and for lots of kids in the midwestern & eastern parts of the US.  Hopefully things will be back to normal by Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest, when our high temp will be a balmy 21 degrees.

Just in case you're not a northerner and you like snow pictures, here's what it looks like out my front door.  See the road there in front of my house?  Yeah, neither do I.  

In lieu of being able to participate in the world at large today, I decided to go domestic.  My son and I baked a pie.  It's my first attempt at lemon meringue.  It looks like a deflated whoopie cushion, but I'm pretty sure it'll be delicious because I licked the pan after we poured the filling in the crust.  

 I worked another crocheted baby bootie this morning.  If you have "liked" the Trappings and Trinkets page on Facebook, you already know that I've been learning to crochet this weekend.  I started with a misshapen gnome hat for my cat on Friday night.  I graduated to booties yesterday, and they both came out great, although two very different sizes.

My third bootie came out the same size as my second (so I think I'm getting that whole tension thing sorted out), but I accidentally worked it inside-out.  Easy fix - I'll just have to pull out the top few green rows and redo them, then I'll have a matched set.

Pattern is Baby Goshalosh Boots by Elizabeth Alan. Yarn is tosh dk in calligraphy and thyme.

Not sure what my next crochet adventure will be….I'm looking for patterns that I can instantly download.  I have a "how to crochet" book that is full of patterns, but they are some seriously ugly things.  Fantastic diagrams and descriptions on how to work each stitch, but there are no projects in the book that I would ever be interesting in making/wearing/using.  So if you're a crocheter, leave me a suggestion in the comments - I understand ss, sc, hdc, dc, s2tog, dc2tog and how to do increases.  I'd love suggestions on well-written crochet patterns for either baby / kid items or accessories for bigger people!