Ooh, successes!

"Your tutors join me in offering congratulations on being awarded a First Class Degree. It represents the culmination of a great deal of hard work and effort, which has been justly rewarded. I hope that your future plans will be e quallysuccessful."

I feel so clever! It's the result I'd be hoping but I hadn't dared anticipate. Of course it's soured a bit by the fact that three years studying means not working thus not gaining any experience to find a job now (and they tell you if you don't go to university you won't get a god job!), but seriously I'm thrilled. I've worked damned hard these last few years and I'm so glad it's paid off. Hurrah!

That was success number one of the week :) Success number two was finally finishing my first skein of plied handspun (after getting frustrated on my first try because it wasn't well balanced). It may not be perfect (some bits are really lumpy), but I'm happy.



After the singles I'm spinning right now, I'm thinking joining the Spun Stitches KAL and buying some natural black fibre (perhaps alpaca) to knit into a shawl. I've never taken part in a knit-a-long before, but I really like the look of this one. I like the idea of knowing what I'm spinning has a destined project since right now I have no idea what to do with my handspun other than snuggle it.

Lookie, a finished object!

It may not the knitted kind, but since this beast has eaten up the last three month of my life I thought it worthy of a mention. Behold, my dissertation:



11,430 words on "An Assessment of the Validity of the Orange Prize for Fiction" printed this morning on what must have been an entire tree, bound and submitted. Okay, so the maximum word count shouldn't have exceeded 10,000 plus 10%... yet given the fact that they were mean enough to make us included the abstract in this I feel justified in lying. After all, what are they going to do, count?

Feels fantastic to have it out the way. I might actually have time to do something other than eat, sleep and type now. To celebrate, I've just been very naughty given the miserable state of my bank balance and ordered myself some sock yarn and... spinning fibre!

My drop spindle arrived safe and well on Saturday. So far I'm having great fun, though given the above I've not been able to play for long periods yet. My first yarn is very overspun and wobbly thus far, but I think I'm vaguely getting the hang of it. Between spinning, drinking tea and curling up with a book, I think I've pretty much got tomorrow sorted :)

I need more tea!

Dissertation procrastination has well and truly set in, which means I spend far too much time aimlessly surfing the internet (or else curled up in a ball) but alas not enough time knitting. As such my two current projects are coming along very very slowly.

The first is a moss stitch hot water bottle cover that I intended to be mindless but unfortunately seems to be rather mind-numbing instead. I love the way the moss stitch looks, it's just so bloody slow, and I fear winter will be well and truly over by the time I've finished it. Oh well.

Project number two is a pair of socks vaguely based on Thuja for my fiance Scott. These are much more fun. I spent Thursday afternoon curled up under a blanket working on the moss ribbing for the first while listening to the podcasts I've been stock-piling. Very cosy. I've decided to used allowing myself to spend a couple of hours similarly as a reward for each five hundred words or so I manage to type on The Validity of the Orange Prize for Fiction. That, and lots of tea. Anything to get motivated.