still life with tulips and pint glass

Witness the first time I've bought cut flowers in recent memory or possibly ever. I love tulips, and wanted to see how long they would last in a vase with water, in preparation for making my wedding bouquet next month. We don't own a vase, but that's nothing a trip to the charity shop won't fix for next time. Until then, a pint glass works fine. (Obviously, we are very classy folks.)



Also witness the open door / window, letting in the glorious weather and record-high temperatures of the last few days. We're lucky to get weather this warm in the summer, never mind in March. Whee!

teaser

Here's a sneak peek of some wedding related knitting I haven't shared with you yet.



Full reveal coming up eventually!

Zauberball puffs

Like everything else, other than maybe shelving books, my hexipuff output has slowed over the last few weeks. I have three lonely puffs to show off today, and they are all made of Zauberball that Pinkundine sent me.



Yes, I know I had an informal rule about only doing two puffs from each yarn... I've broken that rule a few times now, especially with long colour-repeat yarns. A hexipuff is small enough that with Zauberball each one turns out a different colour! Nearly. The pictures don't show it very well, but one of the puffs here is very orange, one is brilliant red, and the other is a lovely sunset gradient from red to fuschia. (I ran out of yarn, so I finished the puff with some other pink yarn I had around, but I think it works okay.) I have more Zauberball for puffs, so there will be purple ones coming as well.

Zauberball is a bit thin for hexipuffs with my gauge, so some of the stuffing shows through a bit. I find this is the case with some of the other yarns I've been using as well. Interestingly, when I used up some different Zauberball in a puff a while back, it was even thinner, so I doubled it, which didn't seem necessary here... I know there can be lots of variation in thickness within one skein, but there seems to be variation between skeins as well.

Still here...

Hello blogosphere! It's been a while, but I'm poking my head in to proclaim that I am still alive, and the blog isn't dead. I haven't been around much because....

I got a job! Hurray! It's only a temp job, but it's in my field and it's much-needed experience (not to mention much needed cash). So far I'm really enjoying it, and I'm trying to get as many shifts as I can in case the work dries up. It's also exhausting - I think I've been working 6 days a week for the last few weeks, even if it is usually part-time hours.

That's what I've been up to. I also had a birthday, for which I bought myself some yarn.



This is Millamia Naturally Soft Merino. I bought it in the SuperKnits sale in January, and hid it under my bed until my birthday, so it was almost a surprise to open it at last. I intend to make Gavotte by Cecily Glowik MacDonald. The lovely Zut gifted me the pattern as an RAK, and I'm keen to start swatching. Once I finish my wedding knitting. Or maybe before.

Speaking of wedding knitting, my shawl is still a fluffy white blob, but I've done 8 repeats of the 9 called for in the pattern, so it is getting there. I may do more repeats, since I have lots of yarn left - I guess I'll see what I have time for.

Lastly, I tried that soda bread again, this time with only a pinch of salt. That did the trick, and this time it was definitely edible.



Though it looks much the same as the first time around. Whew! I think I've forgotten how to blog. I intend to make some thoroughly colourful soup tonight, so here's hoping I have more to write about soon.