Happy Darwin Day!

Today is the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth. Whether or not you believe in evolution (in the interest of full disclosure: I do, and I have never found anything about it that contradicts my religious beliefs), you can't deny that Darwin forever changed the dialogue about the history of life on earth (not to mention making the Galapagos Islands a hot vacation destination). So Happy Birthday, Darwin!

Recognize it? The same friend who gave me her extensive collection of Knitter's Magazines a while back has decided it's time to divest herself of her wool as well. Yesterday, M came home with a couple of bags of yarn and this nearly completed item. I knew immediately what it was when I pulled it out of the bag: garter stitch, false seam stitches about 1/4 of the way in on each side, stitches held on waste yarn after about 18", more stitches cast on on either side after the waste yarn.... Yep, it's a bog jacket. She had it nearly finished when they moved here to to Tucson and she knew she'd never wear it (it IS heavy). I'm planning on finishing it, though, and sending it off to someone in the north who is often cold. I like nearly-instant FOs.

[Chris (the friend) is from the midwest and has been to many retreats with Meg and Elizabeth (knitters who need no last names, n'est-ce pas?). I am soooo jealous.]

On the not-so-instant, but still sailing along quite quickly front, the Shetland Triangle is growing. Here it is in all its lumpy-bumpy, hot pink glory (if you can believe it, it's even hotter pink than it looks in the pic). In this picture, I've done about 90 of the 100 rows the pattern calls for before working the edging chart. I plan on doing probably at least 150 rows before the edging, however, because I want this one to be a nice, big wrappable shawl rather than the tiny little shawl shown in the book -- and I've got plenty of yarn.

Been fighting a cold most of this week which has had me a little blue. It has, however, given me great opportunity to snuggle under my new blankie, and that's been quite fab.

*1816 photo of Charles Darwin is in the public domain, retrieved from Wikimedia Commons