Knitting up a Storm

After several March storms that left us without power for 5 days, we invested in a generator. Hurricane Irene was/is it's debut. We lost power overnight and heard the generator kick in. I was extremely grateful to come down in the morning to a working refrigerator and coffee machine. There are only certain parts of the house connected to the generator, so the kitchen is otherwise utilized by flashlight/candles. All in all we got a little water in the basement which has since receded. Even though the pumps were powered by the generator, they couldn't keep up with the combined efforts of the storm surge, high tide, and rainfall. Gratefully, we came out of it otherwise unscathed.

As I knit through the day, I thought about the types of projects I worked on. I couldn't work on Abrazo, not enough light for beaded knitting and my concentration was on the impending storm. What I have always called "mindless" knitting, for me yesterday became comfort knitting. Having no control over the storm, it felt good to have control over something.
I finished a Keyhole scarf by Tanis Gray from the Juniper Moon Farm Willa Booklet. I even blocked it in the semi-lit kitchen.
You know I'm reaching when I do sewing ahead of knitting. All that was left for my Corinne Cardigan was to sew on the buttons.
I worked on the second sleeve of my Gypsy Shell; only a couple of inches left and this is done.

The only other thing I did, knitwise, was to swatch for an infinity scarf in a new mohair yarn we have at Westport Yarns. I've been eying one colorway for a while and since we have so many lovely mohair yarns, I thought I'd design a relatively simple infinity scarf using 1 skein. I played around with several pattern stitches.
I texted back and forth with my sister for design commentary. She had no power either and heard that texting took less battery than calling, so we texted all day. In the end, I kept it very simple.
When we drove through the town last night, the whole downtown area was without power.

The river had flooded at high tide and the stores had sandbags in front of their doorways! There were whole plazas without power.

The urge for comfort knitting has passed now that the sun is shining. We are still without power and it could be days before it is restored.