Happy things!

This is Knit had a sale this week, and I got this much yarn

Five skeins of Noro Aya,

six skeins of Louisa Harding Willow Tweed,

three skeins of Louisa Harding Rosetti,

four skeins of miscellanoues (Sublime, Debbie Bliss Rialto and Sirdar chunky bamboo)

 for sixty-one euro.

Yarn!

Some of them I have plans for (the Willow Tweed will one day be a top), and the others are just for the sake of stocking up while it's cheap.

Yarn!

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I have finished my Christmas shopping, and only have a few more presents left to make.  I bought slightly fancy wrapping paper (recycled and all) and my presents look like this:

which I think is nice.

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I own a colander now!  No more steam-burning my hands when I need to drain rice or pasta using a bowl!

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I went to my boyfriend's work Christmas dinner last night, and had this novelty beer.

So novel I stole the bottle.  It was nice initially, but it tasted more like beer and less like ginger ale the more I drank.  Pity.

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Term is finished!  Last week I handed in an essay worth 8% of my degree.  The day before it was due I was talking to my PI, who also set that essay title, and when I described what I'd done she said it wasn't quite what she'd had in mind.  Handed in regardless, and the person I believe is my second reader is quite a lenient marker.  So that could go alright.  Plus, today I was in the lab and when I was using the cryostat approximately one in three specimens were undamaged!  I'm on fire.

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My class are having a Christmas dinner later.  In the meantime, I'm going to sit in the warm, knitting and emailing neuroscience PIs about research positions for next year.

Free things!

My mum somehow mentioned to a woman in her choir that I knit, and she was very excited.  Every so often my mum will come and and say that she was asking for me, do I still like the knitting, etc.  Last week she came home saying that the woman had come to her saying that she had some knitting books she hadn't any use for, and she didn't want me to feel obliged, but if I'd like them I was welcome to them.

So now I have these!

They have some cute speedy patterns, and one jumper I want to make.  (The 'casual jumper' on the cover of the one on the right.)  Dilemma:  It's a nice jumper, and the patterns recommends a brand of (machine-washable) yarn that I want to use in a project.  ~16 balls for my size though, and about seven euro a ball.  First world problems!

FO Friday: Fingerless mittens.

I really like the idea of FO Friday/wip Wednesday posts (regular alliteration!), but the former would be far and few between, and the latter would get quite repetitive.

A friend of a friend requested a pair of bright pink fingerless mittens, so these happened.

I think they turned out well enough, given that I didn't use a pattern.  I just put them on as I was knitting to work out when fingers were long enough, and where the pouch should go.

Last night I also finished a Mobius scarf to be given as a Christmas present, but realised I had put in a full twist instead of a half-twist.  Annoying times.  It's been frogged, and there's weeks yet.

The new cryostat in the lab keeps acting up and damaging my specimens!  It is ever so sad.  And last weekend I cycled out to St. James' to get some books from their library, but got lost on the way, and when I got there it was closed, even though the website told me it would still be open.  First world problems over here.