Lazy Saturday and Day 1 of the Knitting Olympics

I'm posting late today because Saturday mornings are for decompressing from the week, just sitting back, drinking cinnamon coffee and eating something sweet. Today it was a lemon bar. If anyone has an easy recipe for lemon bars I'd love to have it.
I cast on for the hat during the opening ceremonies but it was tough with the time difference. It was 9 pm here and by that time I'm usually ready to fall asleep, not count stitches.
There were 2 small glitches so far: I couldn't get one of the colors I needed so I had to substitute a color called chestnut for the one the pattern calls for which is chocolate. I hope it's close enough. Then I had to switch needles. I cast on a #6 Boye interchangeable needle but found out the cord is 24 inches not 16 and was too big. I have a Knitpicks set but it doesn't have a cord that small either. So I have to use my old Denise set. It's annoying because I hate to knit with plastic needles because they drag. I much prefer metal ones. But I'll just have to deal with it. I used a cable cast on. The long-tail cast on is faster but I usually cast on too tightly with it. I don't have to start the fair-isle part yet. First I have to do ribbing for 3 inches.
Here's the start of it: