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Thursday, March 29, 2012

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.)

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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!

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Sunday, March 18, 2012

teaser

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

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Full reveal coming up eventually!

Friday, March 09, 2012

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.

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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.

Tuesday, March 06, 2012

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.

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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.

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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.