Last night we went to the Coal Town Celidh and I learned there are different styles of traditional music even in Cape Breton. The first act was a trio of two fiddlers and a keyboard player. The fiddlers were local to Sydney Mines, but they learned to play in the Chéticamp (French Acadian) Style. You can hear the influence it had on Cajun Zydeco. Here’s the only video I could find of our fiddlers, and I’m sorry the French Acadian keyboardist is not included here.

Today is our last concert. I’m a little sad. I’ve learned so much about Celtic music.

I finished “A Dark and Stormy Knit” by Anne Canadeo. Mildlygranola asked me for a book review, so here goes.

Maggie owns a yarn shop in a small seaport Massachusetts town, where, as it turns out, all kinds of mysterious and untoward things happen: knit graffiti, university art department politics, and murder!

While Maggie and her group of knitting friends – which includes a young student who works at the yarn shop – try to suss out who is responsible for what, they knit fun projects and eat delicious food. Props to the author for including links to knitting patterns and recipes at the end of the book.

This was a light and fun read for a holiday. The mystery was enough to keep me interested but it was also easy to put down. I give it a 3 out of 5.

Now I am reading “The Mermaid and the Bear” by Ailish Sinclair, which I preordered on Amazon. It just came out. I started reading it and it is quite good, so I made myself finish the knitting mystery first. Now I can freely enjoy my historical fiction selection.

We’re going to walk down to the harbor this morning to see the Newfoundland Ferry before our concert at 2 PM. We wanted to take the ferry but it’s 9 hours to Newfoundland so it would have to be an overnight stay. Maybe next time.

On the knitting front, I’ve decided I want to make a Halvis. I called Baadeck Yarns to see if they had anymore Celtic Colours specialty dyed in fingering, because I thought that would be amazing with the charcoal fingering Forbidden Fibers I received in the last Fibre Share. No luck, though. They are sold out, of course. I still want to make it. I need to find a substitute for the Celtic Colours yarn. It’s more difficult than it sounds. Here is the photo they shared on their Facebook page of the Celtic Colours yarn.

(Sigh) They do have three more skeins left of the bulky. Hmm… what could I do with four skeins of bulky merino in this colorway?