This weekend, I published a new pattern! It's the Librarian Beanie. My friend, Anne, who is a librarian in real life, modeled for me. I have the best friends.

I did not come up with this design all by myself. As I said before, I have the best friends. My friend, Sarah, (who is a librarian and very busy with graduate school, work, life, and raising two little boys) and I were texting a couple of months ago about volunteering, politics, and how there's basically not enough time to resist and connect in all the ways we would like. In a text that might have had a slightest whiff of frustration tinged with exhaustion, she wrote something like, "I don't think I can take on more right now. Also? I'm a librarian. Librarians are f*cking helpful." I about died. Sarah wondered about putting that last sentence on a t-shirt. I offered to knit it into a hat. Around the same time I offered to knit it into a hat, she revised the sentence to read, "Librarians: Helpful AF." Collaboration at its best, right?

Normally, I design patterns in wool yarn. I love Sincere Sheep's yarn, and I used Equity Fingering in this design. But my friend, Anne, is allergic to wool, and this project seemed like a perfect opportunity try something new. Vegan Yarn seemed like a great choice. I used their Pleiades Sock yarn, which is made of bamboo, cotton and elastic, and dyed with low-impact dyes. If you don't (or your favorite librarian doesn't) do wool, it's a terrific alternative.

So please tell your knitting-library-and-librarian-loving friends about the Librarian Beanie!

Quick totally unrelated question: What are you all doing for breakfast foods lately? We're still into homemade yogurt (lately with sheep's milk, of all things, which is amazing and so mild), and I've also started making a version of this custard, but with roasted sweet potatoes instead of pumpkin. It has been a big hit, but I'm ready for the next great make-ahead idea.

There are also school birthdays coming up where Wyatt will bring-his-own treat, so we made these "brownies" on Sunday, and they're good. I would never mistake them for actual brownies, but as a gluten-free, reasonably healthy bar cookie, we like them a lot. If you make them, do not make the mistake we did and use an immersion blender to mix (is that what they meant by "hand blender?"), because if it's like our immersion blender, it will seriously overheat before you're done mixing. I think a regular mixer would work fine.

I cut the bars and then froze them individually for easy, single servings.