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Alison Hawke

Alison Hawke

Cheese mines of Wales

BBC News: Cheddar matures 300ft down mine. Big Pit, Wales' working mine museum, is lending its mine shafts to a firm creating a Welsh cheddar cheese. A Blaenavon company which makes four types of cheddar says the temperature 90m (300ft) underground is ideal for its 40kg (90lb) blocks of

Upcoming yarn

I was prowling the SWTC website, and they have a whole bunch of interesting looking yarns coming out besides the Tofutsies. These ones caught my eye: * Craft, 35% milk Fiber, 65% organic cotton, 5.5 sts/in on US 6 needles (4mm) * Rock, 40% soysilk, 30% wool, 30% hemp, 5

Finding history

BBC News: School wall yields historic items. A unique piece of local history has been discovered in the wall of a local primary school in Gravesend, Kent. A bottle containing artefacts from the day in 1893 when building work on Wrotham Road School finished was dug out by workmen building

Second Annual Brigid in Cyberspace Poetry Reading

I missed this last year. More info here. A Martian Sends A Postcard Home by Craig Raine Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings and some are treasured for their markings - they cause the eyes to melt or the body to shriek without pain. I have never seen one

Neolithic Henge Fest

BBC News: Stonehenge builders' houses found. A huge ancient settlement used by the people who built Stonehenge has been found, archaeologists have said. Excavations at Durrington Walls, near the legendary Salisbury Plain monument, uncovered remains of ancient houses. People seem to have occupied the sites seasonally, using them for

Handspun secret pal!

Came home to find a parcel from my Handspun secret pal waiting for me, and I'm blown away: That beautiful skein of yarn was spun on a drop spindle, then hand-dyed in my favourite colours! It came out gorgeous, spun thick and thin, "poor woman's

Chitin socks

For Susan at Myer's House, I have this picture: It's the Tofutsies yarn (wool, cotton, soy silk and chitin from crab and shrimp shells), with the Elfine Socks pattern (PDF). The yarn label says: Chitin is fiber from shrimp and crab shells! It's naturally

Fancy a Farmer?

BBC News: Lonely farmers advertise on milk. A group of lonely heart farmers have put their photographs on milk bottles in an attempt to find love. Five single dairy farmers are advertising on Calon Wen milk with the slogan Fancy a Farmer to mark St Dwynwen's Day, the

Lace patterns

Couldn't resist it, I grabbed a ball of Tofutsies, the wool/cotton/soy silk/chitin yarn. It looks thinner than some sock yarns, feels softer than wool/cotton blends, and colour 728 (also knows as three feet short) is very similar to the Wild Thing roving I got

Cupboard for sale

BBC News: 'Table-sized flat' for Â£170,000. A flat roughly the size of a snooker table has gone on sale for Â£170,000 [$340,000] in London's upmarket Chelsea. The former janitor's storeroom measures 11ft by 7ft and has a cupboard place

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