A nice cup of tea and a sit down

Firstly, thanks for all the congratulations about handing in my thesis. If you still want to enter the competition there is another day to get your guess in, have a second guess if you want - only two though (note: I've extended the deadline by a day). If you want to see it knitted up, here's a shot of a skein I dyed at the same time. A few people asked about the dying process, I'm writing it up on the yarn's ravelry page.

More good news: the Interweave preview is up for fall and one of my designs is in it. To celebrate, I brewed up a good old pot of tea.

Except, I stuck a load of yarn in it rather than actually drinking the stuff. I'd read about people dying with tea before, and, still reeling from the smell of koolaid (people drink it?), I thought I'd give it a go. I got a bit carried away and dyed about half my stash, its amazing to see how the different yarns took the tea differently (its all the same brand of tea-bag).

Above is some more bamboo/wool sock yarn, which I think will end up as a baby garment. Below are before and after shots of Orangina I made with some cotton bought in the summer sales. The original colour was a bit too bright yellow. Dunking the FO in a saucepan of tea before I blocked it has just muted it a bit and brought out the golds. Only a slight change, but a much more wearable garment.

Some more before and after shots, this time from a shawl of knit/crochet hexagons. Again, the original (this time a bright white) was a bit too strong and the tea calmed things down, but it came out much more bronze than the other two.

And finally, because you can't have afternoon-tea without some bread and jam, another comparison shot from a taste-test I did today. The front bit of bread has some raspberry jam I made back in April. The one behind is from a batch I did on tuesday, to a recipe from the Guardian. This new batch uses a lot less sugar, and consequentially, to my taste, is a lot yummier - its much more fruity. Still, I'm sure it won't keep nearly so long.

contest: purple sock yarn

Blog contest in celebration of finishing my thesis - guess the number of references in my bibliography. Deadline for answers is 5pm, Thursday 24th July 2008 Friday 25th July (London time). The closest guess wins this skein of sock yarn.

Its a wool and bamboo mix, dyed by me. 100g, it comes in at about 420 meters - plenty for a pair of socks. From a smoke and pet free home, though it does still smell a bit of grape-flavoured koolaid (my dye of choice). I might throw in some other purple-themed goodies too if I find anything worthy. In event of a tie, I'll pick one winner at random. No one who has read the thesis can enter.

Some clues to get you going:

• It includes both primary and secondary sources.
• The actual thesis content these sources support comes in at just under 100,000 words.
  
• My case study is this series, though I mentioned many other primary examples, and my secondary source list was much longer.
• My media studies inclined colleagues felt it was a bit citation-heavy, the litcrit types thought it was sparse.
• The photo below shows the thesis open at the page the bibliography starts. There are no appendixes after that. It is 1.5x spaced, in 11pt font on A4 paper.
• Its more than fifty, less than three thousand.
• You might as well guess something random. When I tried to guess, I was a good hundred off, and I wrote the bleeding thing.
  

EDIT: I mean 'closest' as in nearest guess either way (you can go over). So, if the answer was 7586 and no one gets that but someone gets 7588 and another 7584, I'll pick one of the two out of a hat.