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!

As deadlines loom, I knit in lectures so my hands don't go crazy.

"I'm so jealous of how productive Jen is!  You'll just be sitting in a lecture, taking notes, contributing to the discussion, making insightful points, and, like, producing a hat at the same time."

Shucks.

Christmas knitting.

My much lamented circle scarf for my brother's girlfriend, over from Boston this weekend:

She hasn't opened it yet and I'm not sure if it's rude to suggest that she does before she leaves.  Seeing people's reactions is the fun of presents!

I think seed stitch is the third bowl of porridge of basic stitches.  Not as plain as garter stitch, not as rolly as stockinette or ribbing.   Just right!

The yarn is leftover Tupa from a shrug I made when a colleague of my mum's was retiring.  It is fifty percent merino and fifty percent silk and just wow.

Owl hat for the sister of a friend of a friend!  (The friend-of-friend was the recipient of the unicorn hat.)  The hat is made with Freedom Purity, which is a mix of wool and alpaca, because it was the most owlish colour scheme in the shop.  The eyes and beak were hanging around from other projects, all acrylic, I think.

I wish the bags under my eyes were filled with TIME.

Seed stitch brim because I'm only mad for it these days.

Yet another brainmonster!  I took quite a lot of pictures, but is too big for my head - it's for a friend's brother-in-law - so they all look silly and make the hat look bad.  I'm not sure if I managed to make the eyes look wacky and googly, rather than just clumsily made, but said friend is happy with it!

This was waiting for me when I came home for the weekend.  Never too old.