I'm going outside

On December 14th 1911 Roald Amundsen and a team of four men were the first people to reach the South Pole. He, and all his men reached their base safely on the 25th of January.
More famous, in the UK at leas,t is Sir Robert Falcon Scott who reached the pole on the 17th January 1912, almost 4 weeks later, also with a team of four men. On the journey back to their base, all five of them perished due to a combination of exhaustion, starvation and scurvy.

For most of the 20th century Scott was labelled as a tragic hero. His bravery, and that of his team (who doesn't remember the reported last words of Captain Titus Oats, who left the tent in a blizzard to die saying "I am going outside, I may be some time") was considered fact. It was only in the latter stages of the 20th century that people started to question the causes of the disaster.

I have done a fair amount of reading on the race to the South Pole, and find it fascinating. Looking at the vastly different missions, why one failed so monumentally and one succeeded is truly interesting to me. That's why when making the choice between Celestarium and Southern Skies, both by Audry Nicklin, I decided to go for Southern Skies.

For the circular cast on I used TechKnitter's belly button method and found it much easier than the previous methods I've tried.

And I am so very in love with this shawl. My beads arrived yesterday and so I spent the evening on the sofa figuring out beading. I'd already started the shawl, so pre-stringing them was out. I bought a tiny crochet hook for beading, but at 0.5mm it is too small. In the end, I am using dental floss (link to how it should be done here, about half way down the page), but I have no idea what dental floss threaders are, so I am using regular dental floss and a sewing needle. It works, and the shawl will be ever so slightly minty fresh.

It's my first time beading, and look, look how very pretty the little beads are! I am charmed by each and every tiny one of them at the moment.
I should also warn Ben that I'll not be cooking complicated meals or doing much housework for a while. Or going out. All I want to do is sit on the sofa and knit this shawl.
Did you see the tiny beads? Very few things currently charm me as much as those beads.

I am struck by the eternal tragedy that even I am not silly enough to try and do beaded knitting on public transport. This will have to be a stay at home project. That does give me a remote chance of finishing some deadline knitting though.