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Alison Hawke

Alison Hawke

Dying for some tea (part 2)

Before dying the yarn, I soaked it in cool water with a smidge of Eucalan. I brewed tea for 30 minutes in a pyrex bowl with five plain black tea bags and boiling water. If you were drinking this, it would be strong and bitter from the tannins. The tea

Dying for some tea (part 1)

When I was a child, I had a cotton sweater I loved to wear. It was bright white, short sleeved, and every time I wore it, I spilled something on it. Tea, Coke, orange juice, ketchup, more tea, I never wore the thing for a full day. We called it

Alternative fuels

Wired: Power your car with pee A scientist at Ohio University has developed a catalyst capable of extracting hydrogen from urine. That’s right. Urine. Now you can fill one tank while draining another. Gerardine Botte claims the device uses significantly less energy than is needed to extract hydrogen from

Tour de Fleece - All pink, all the time

Decided to re-skein the suri/icelandic yarn, I might have felted it a little when I washed it. The mohair yarn will be dyed in black tea next week, and re-skeined after that. Thursday 15th July Spun more of the pink merino/bamboo. The colouring is interesting, it looks as

Tweets for the week of July 17th

<li>Since when did ad-blocking get equated to stealing? I decide what I download, not you! <a href="http://twitter.com/QuantumTea/statuses/2566771837">#</a></li> <li>Completed a Java coding exercise, and put JUnit tests around it.

Tour de Fleece - One goal met!

Made my goal of two well-plied skeins on Tuesday 14th, one of mohair, one of suri/icelandic. Both are small skeins, 102yds and 117yds, and both are two ply. The skeins are balanced and the plying is even, I'm very happy with these. My other goal is spinning

Tour de Fleece - spinning along

Getting close to my "two well-plied skeins" goal now, still spinning every weekday. I'm spinning on Tour de France rest days because my goal is not to follow them exactly. Friday 10th July Working on the second bobbin of suri/icelandic, probably about halfway through. Pleasantly

Tweets for the week of July 10th

<li>Nothing says organization like 280 index cards and a terabyte backup hard drive. <a href="http://twitter.com/QuantumTea/statuses/2456322631">#</a></li> <li>Baked cherry pie from scratch with Hubby for 4th of July family get

Tour de Fleece - Skein and bobbin

There are two separate Tour de Fleece's going on, the one I'm doing, and another one on Ravelry with prizes and hoopla. They both apparently started in 2006. A highlight of the Tour de Fleece I'm signed up with is the list of participant

Tour de Fleece - first skein

My goal for this year's Tour de Fleece is to spin every weekday of the Tour de France, and to have two decently plied skeins by the end. I tend to rush the plying and so it can be more twisty than it should be. Decided to leave

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