Today's Mystery

Here's my Team Sweden yarn pre-winding.



Here's the yarn wound into two balls of equal size.



Where did the extra 1 g get to?
(note: the pre-wound skein does not have any extra string tying it up)

In reality, it's probably just my argos value scale fighting with its own imprecision - while I was taking the second photo, it couldn't decide between 99 g and 100 g. Quite possibly, the same thing happened during the first photo, but I wasn't paying attention. Still, funny mysteries of the universe!

Did I say spring?

Cue the snow.

This morning we had a visitor. Please excuse blurry out-the-window shot.


Our neighbour? I've seen more foxes since moving to Edinburgh than in my whole life.

 

By the time I made it out to take this picture, the snow had turned to rain, but there were some good fluffy flakes going for a while.

cultural differences, or snack food education

When I first lived in the UK a few years ago, I didn't experience too much culture shock, but I expect everyone around me got tired of hearing about the little differences there were. Now that I live with an English dude, I often find out about little differences that I didn't stumble upon on my own before. This seems to happen most often with food.

For example, this evening I read Smitten Kitchen's blog post about home made goldfish crackers. Remembering these cheerful snacks fondly, I exclaimed something to the effect of, "This blogger has a recipe for goldfish crackers! That's awesome!"



The outburst was met by a blank look from my fiancé.

"You know, goldfish crackers. They are cheesey and shaped like fish? Did you never have those as a kid?"

"No. Are they like Wotsits?"

"What are Wotsits?"

etc.

In a similar way, I've learned about eggy soldiers, Twiglets, jelly and ice cream, (ew, seriously, ew) and a host of other foodstuffs I can't call to mind right now. Likewise, I introduced him to poutine, beaver tails, and whatever rubbishy snacks I had as a kid. He put up with my moaning about the lack of readily available good peanut butter, until I found a suitably virtuous (no added salt, no added sugar) version at the health food store. Peanut butter is serious business. Anyway.

We're both a bit puzzled by some of the traditional Scottish things that show up on menus, though. Cullen Skink anyone?

(Not that there is anything puzzling about the soup in itself - it's the name that puzzled me!)

Quake!

There was an earthquake of magnitude 5.0 this afternoon. The epicentre was about 60 km away, and it shook for a long time. The internet says 15-20 seconds, but it felt like longer.

I've felt tremors before, but this is by far the most dramatic and longest I've ever experienced. When things started falling off shelves, I ran outside and heard things cracking and crashing. After a while I couldn't really tell whether the vibrations I felt under my barefoot were still earthquake or just my adrenaline rushing. I don't think I could handle living in California where the earthquakes are serious business!


This soapstone sculpture had a lucky save and somehow didn't fall off the mantle.

Nothing big broke in my house, but some pottery slid off the shelves and shattered. Plenty of books, cds, and miscellaneous other clutter also ended up on the floor. Ah well, I needed to clean my room anyway. The mess in my room was pretty extreme afterwards, but to be honest, I had piles of things on the floor to start with: I'm in the middle of packing to move.

Thursday for words and missed photo opportunities

echt
Authentic, genuine, typical.
~The Oxford Essential Dictionary of Foreign Terms in English

Despite some examples in Oxford Reference Online (thank goodness for a library subscription), I'm not really sure how to use this word. Does anyone out there know?

In completely unrelated news -

Things I wanted to take pictures of today, but didn't have my camera:

-a Wet Floor sign usually posted in or near the washrooms in my building at university that has been modified to read "Don't Slip on the BS"
-a rusted out muffler lying abandoned on the sidewalk

Sensing a theme

Ishbel is in the foreground, the second Snail Mitten is in the background, and one of my favourite comfy hoodies is nearby. I swear this was not staged: I've been alternating work on both projects today, and I happened to throw the hoodie on my bed instead of putting it away.

You think maybe I like purple / aubergine? Oy. Time to branch out, I think! (To be fair, the Ishbel yarn is definitely more brown than the Snail Mitten yarn, but they are both dark and purple-y)

suburban music

I might have posted this before, but I rediscovered it recently and it's so awesome I thought I'd share.



Six musicians break into an apartment while the owners are out and create a musical masterpiece.

OOh internet fun!

I saw this at Canary Knits, and I'm probably the last to jump on the bandwagon, but it looked like fun, so here it is.



The blog according to Wordle.

Gee, I seem to be obsessed with Ottawa.

secret knitting revealed

I nearly forgot to post a picture of these. They now live in England with someone whose lemon obsession prompted me to buy a crapload of cheap yellow acrylic and transform a tiny amount of it into lemons. I'm so pleased with them. The recipient, upon finding miscellaneous lemons appearing mysteriously in his house, proceeded to accuse me of having an unhealthy obsession with lemons. Clearly I made them to tickle HIS obsession, not my own. *shifty eyes*

That's right.

(I used this pattern with a few modifications noted on Ravelry)

Knit scavenging

Okay, so false alarm about the alpaca blend basement yarn. I kept knitting, and it no longer bothers me, so I'm going to stick with this Gilmore vest.



I am slowing making my way... I haven't knit anything flat in a long time.

Note the mismatched needles:


These needles were scavenged from second hand stores over the years, or dumped, partnerless, in my basement by a relative. Or something. In any case, they are the same size, so they work fine. They amuse me.

Mismatchedness, scavenging, reusing... I think these are features of my crafting style, if I have such a thing. I like working with found objects: I pick broken jewelry up off the ground with every intention to make something new out of it (I will someday, I swear). I use found basement needles and found basement yarn. Part of my love-hate relationship with the clutter of handicraft seems to mellow with found crafts, since at least I can use something that someone else might have thrown away. I'm not sure if it gets me anywhere; maybe the effect is purely psychological.

Robot fights!

Items prohibited to send to the UK by mail, according to Canada Post:

Clothes and rags, soiled
Flick knives
Horror comics
Live animals
Lottery tickets and advertising
Meat and milk based products in items intended for personal use
Mineral products
Prison-made goods
Videos, sound recordings and printed matter, indecent.

Horror comics? I'd be interested in hearing the story behind that one.