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The frantic countdown to the Bendigo sheep and wool show aka “The Ultimate Splurge Weekend of the year”, is only one week away !!!
Next Friday morning the gates will open to the absolutely fantastic wool show filled with lots of fluffy animals and equally fluffy stallholders and people wanting to cuddle anything woolly that they can get their hands on.
The dyepots and me have been busy again, lots of fluff is braided and labelled already, Lots of last minute “let’s hope this dries in time” washing going on too ! Including loads of new IxCHeL tweed yarns in dreamy new pastel dusky colours !!! Fingers crossed they will dry in time for the packing up on Wednesday !!
Bendigo Show is a HUGE undertaking and I feel very very blessed to have so many people reach out and offer to help me. I am honoured and so humbled by all your help !
Me, myself and I, are still in a state of shock after seeing a cardiologist privately last Tuesday, since the public health system is obviously coping with such a backlog that they have not been able to locate me at all. The specialist basically told me some things I found either deeply disturbing or illogical, like my situation is not good but they hate to put a pacemaker in someone this young (I'm not retirement age yet but djeeez I am not exactly in my twenties either…rofl) and to top that off: do not drive because the electrical system in my heart is basically faulty and I could go down at any time without warning. Excellent news! Nothing better than hearing one is a ticking timebomb. (yes to the AFP listening in..I said bomb, arrest me..let’s see who can get to me faster..you or the hospital with their back log...I dare you)…. Anyway, Still got my sense of humour although it is starting to get on the cynical side.
Last week I promised you a list..a BENDIGO SHOPPING LIST , so to speak, so you can see what fluffy goodness I will be bringing ! So here it is!! BUT, before I get to that : DUST off your bunny ears ! As usual every year, wear your bunny ears to the Flower Shed (Shed 23) and you will receive a “Thank you for being a Super bunny “ Gift pack ! It’s a lot of fun so join in and be bunny awesome !!!!
Here’s the Bendigo Show IxCheL Shopping list !
YARN
1. NEW!! IxCHeL tweed in 18+ different colours !!! a gorgeous single ply, fingering weight yarn with awesome colourful flecks in soft lambswool and kid mohair
2. Merino/Silk/nylon sock yarn, hand dyed and spun right here in Victoria
3. Silver Star sock weight yarn: super soft merino, cashmere, nylon and silver Angelina
4. DK weight yarn of pure merino
5. Lace Weight pure merino
6. Cobweb weight cashmerino yarn (a wonderful cashmere and merino blend with a fabulous meterage, not only great for knitting but also to use to ply your handspun singles with and fab for weaving too !!)
7. Handspun bunny mink yarn : so soft you will not be able to let it go! Works great to combine it with fingering weight yarn as well to get that halo you see in lots of new designs now!
8. Handspun angora bunny yarn
9. Handspun angora wallaby yarn
10. Handspun angora bunny possum yarn
11. NEW!!! IxCHeL Cotton tail yarn:super soft Australian Cotton yarn in fingering weight. Hand dyed (of course 😉 )
12. Sock yarn mini skeins !!
FIBRES
1. Rapunzel Blend: A super fine merino with gold angelina, cashmere and so many other goodies !!
2. Blossom Bunny Blend: superfine merino with some rose bush plant fibres mixed in togetehr with silk !
3. Tundra Blend: a very exclusive blend with Qiviut !
4. Pearl Bunny: A super soft blend with Chitin ! To know what that is read this blog further on for all the scientific titbits and some of the colours on offer today !
5. Vampire Deer Blend: Yes, with actual vampire deer !excellent to spin and so soft it is out of this world
6. Guanaco blend: Another rare breed blend that is super soft. Feel it to believe it !
7. Vicuna blend: See last weeks blog update for more information. This blend is so exclusive it is only once every 5 or so years that I can (maybe ) get my hands on a very very small quantity, so this is your chance!
8. North Ronaldsay Blend with silver infused seaweed ; hand dyed , another rare sheep breed and super soft blended with our cashmere and angora bunny
9. Alpine Silver: Another rare sheep breed adventure with Swiss Valais Blacknose sheep ( a very cute sheep!) blended with our cashmere and bunny and even some silver Angelina !
10. Blue Faced Leicester tops
11. Shetland bunny tops
12. DIVA tops: a wonderful blend with some glitz and superfine merino, cashmere and bunny
13. Black Bunny: a super duper BLACK bunny blend with black silk and black bunny
14. NEW Outlander !! one of my favourite blends !! with soay sheep from the Scottish isles : the tiniest sheep in the world and super soft, this time with extra Mulberry silk to make it extra shinyyyy!
15. Hungarian Racka blend: another rare sheep breed which is so shiny and so nice to spin too!
16. Camelbunny silk and Cashmere: Another soft blend with baby camel, cashmere and bunny wih a huge amount of silk
17. Bunny Bison Bliss: Bison, bunny and cashmere with a dash of Tencel. Excellent to spin in lots of new handdyed colourways
18. NEW!!!! Happy Bunny: A fab blend with superfine merino in two colours and Australian hemp ! together with some very nice cashmere too and lots more !
19. NEW!!!! HAPPY SHEEP: to celebrate the sheep breed in focus this year at the show I have blended up a Polwarth Blend with Australian Hemp and more ! A truly happy blend !!!!
20. Mulberry silk tops
21. Leader sheep tops: A super special super rare breed from Iceland blended with amazing angora bunny and cashmere and more to make it excellent and soft to spin and wear !
22. Gothic Bunny Tops: Super fine merino, cashmere and angora with black silk in lots of new colourways.
23. Angora Bunny fibres and wallaby fibres
24. CASHMERE FLING tops !!!!
VARIOUS
1. Indigo dye kits
2. Osage orange dye kits
3. Spinning control cards
4. Hand dyed pre Felt
5. Buddhas tears tea
6. IxCHeL Bath Salts
7. Landscape dyes
8. BADGES!!! Lots of fun badges !!!!
LAIR OF THE BEARDED DRAGON WOOD TURNED AWESOMENESS!!!
Lair of the Bearded Dragon Spindles!!!
Support spindles, drop spindles, Turkish spindles, daelgan Scottish spindles, Navajo spindles, Spinning bowls, needle cases, nostepinne, wrist distaffs and so much more !!!!!!
I think I got everything on the list but I may have forgotten something….lol
There’s a wonderful new blend on offer tonight : Pearl Bunny !!! Thank you so much to all of you who sent me messages and offered their help ! I cannot thank you enough !
The one new blend I am especially enthusiastic about for the Bendigo show are my Pearl Bunny tops with an amazing new and strange fibre: Chitin.( pronounced as “KIE-TIN” not "Shit-in" ) Anyhoo, Chitin is one of those elements that I always am on the look out for , just like the stainless steel blend from years ago I unleashed on all of you. I am always looking outside of the box to combine either technology, science, bizarness, call it what you like, into my special blends. This one took a bit of doing and literally years of combining science with the craft of blending different fibres together. But, let me start by explaining what exactly brought me to add shitin..eh..i mean..Chitin... to my fibre blends ready for handspinning :
Chitin was discovered by the French chemist and pharmacist Henri Braconnot in 1811 and, after cellulose, it's the most important biopolymer in nature. In fact, it is made of the exoskeleton of insects, shellfish and Shells. Chitin is a polysaccharide.
Chemically speaking it looks like a long-chain in which pearls are molecules of N-acetylglucosamine. The N-glucosamine is a very important substance for the human organism, in fact, it is the precursor of hyaluronic acid and it is used in therapies for the functional recovery of the joints.
Chitin is also widely used in the medical world to make suture wires because it can be degraded by enzymes present in human tissue. It is also used as wound dressing, enormously important to treat burn victims. Chitin has a remarkable strength and it accelerates the healing of wounds. (want to delve deeper into some research?
Here are some publications in the international journal of Niological Macromolecules: www.brommarin.com/blog-en/blog-posts/publications%20chitin%20scaffolds%20tissue%20engineering.php
As a medical anthropologist, the medical application of a fibre always peaks my interest and so I did some more research. So wait , there is more !
Obviously I will not tell you to eat the Pearl bunny tops, but Chitin has many other applications than medical suture wires and wound dressing. It is also extensively used in and pharmaceutical products. It is often used as a food thickener and stabilizer, and it can also form edible films. Chitin is also used in supplements to manage healthy cholesterol levels and body weight. Additional uses of chitin include the support of kidney function. Some early research shows that Chitin supports the body’s natural ability to heal skin damage and nerve regrowth.
Now something that really alerted me to the oddity of this fibre is based on , well, is it a protein or cellulose fibre? The chemical answer to that question is , well, interesting to say the least Chitin, being derived from shells, made me think it was more like a protein than a cellulose fibre since there is obviously no cellulose in a crab. So I looked deeper into the chemical structure of Chitin and here it is:
Next Friday morning the gates will open to the absolutely fantastic wool show filled with lots of fluffy animals and equally fluffy stallholders and people wanting to cuddle anything woolly that they can get their hands on.
The dyepots and me have been busy again, lots of fluff is braided and labelled already, Lots of last minute “let’s hope this dries in time” washing going on too ! Including loads of new IxCHeL tweed yarns in dreamy new pastel dusky colours !!! Fingers crossed they will dry in time for the packing up on Wednesday !!
Bendigo Show is a HUGE undertaking and I feel very very blessed to have so many people reach out and offer to help me. I am honoured and so humbled by all your help !
Me, myself and I, are still in a state of shock after seeing a cardiologist privately last Tuesday, since the public health system is obviously coping with such a backlog that they have not been able to locate me at all. The specialist basically told me some things I found either deeply disturbing or illogical, like my situation is not good but they hate to put a pacemaker in someone this young (I'm not retirement age yet but djeeez I am not exactly in my twenties either…rofl) and to top that off: do not drive because the electrical system in my heart is basically faulty and I could go down at any time without warning. Excellent news! Nothing better than hearing one is a ticking timebomb. (yes to the AFP listening in..I said bomb, arrest me..let’s see who can get to me faster..you or the hospital with their back log...I dare you)…. Anyway, Still got my sense of humour although it is starting to get on the cynical side.
Last week I promised you a list..a BENDIGO SHOPPING LIST , so to speak, so you can see what fluffy goodness I will be bringing ! So here it is!! BUT, before I get to that : DUST off your bunny ears ! As usual every year, wear your bunny ears to the Flower Shed (Shed 23) and you will receive a “Thank you for being a Super bunny “ Gift pack ! It’s a lot of fun so join in and be bunny awesome !!!!
Here’s the Bendigo Show IxCheL Shopping list !
YARN
1. NEW!! IxCHeL tweed in 18+ different colours !!! a gorgeous single ply, fingering weight yarn with awesome colourful flecks in soft lambswool and kid mohair
2. Merino/Silk/nylon sock yarn, hand dyed and spun right here in Victoria
3. Silver Star sock weight yarn: super soft merino, cashmere, nylon and silver Angelina
4. DK weight yarn of pure merino
5. Lace Weight pure merino
6. Cobweb weight cashmerino yarn (a wonderful cashmere and merino blend with a fabulous meterage, not only great for knitting but also to use to ply your handspun singles with and fab for weaving too !!)
7. Handspun bunny mink yarn : so soft you will not be able to let it go! Works great to combine it with fingering weight yarn as well to get that halo you see in lots of new designs now!
8. Handspun angora bunny yarn
9. Handspun angora wallaby yarn
10. Handspun angora bunny possum yarn
11. NEW!!! IxCHeL Cotton tail yarn:super soft Australian Cotton yarn in fingering weight. Hand dyed (of course 😉 )
12. Sock yarn mini skeins !!
FIBRES
1. Rapunzel Blend: A super fine merino with gold angelina, cashmere and so many other goodies !!
2. Blossom Bunny Blend: superfine merino with some rose bush plant fibres mixed in togetehr with silk !
3. Tundra Blend: a very exclusive blend with Qiviut !
4. Pearl Bunny: A super soft blend with Chitin ! To know what that is read this blog further on for all the scientific titbits and some of the colours on offer today !
5. Vampire Deer Blend: Yes, with actual vampire deer !excellent to spin and so soft it is out of this world
6. Guanaco blend: Another rare breed blend that is super soft. Feel it to believe it !
7. Vicuna blend: See last weeks blog update for more information. This blend is so exclusive it is only once every 5 or so years that I can (maybe ) get my hands on a very very small quantity, so this is your chance!
8. North Ronaldsay Blend with silver infused seaweed ; hand dyed , another rare sheep breed and super soft blended with our cashmere and angora bunny
9. Alpine Silver: Another rare sheep breed adventure with Swiss Valais Blacknose sheep ( a very cute sheep!) blended with our cashmere and bunny and even some silver Angelina !
10. Blue Faced Leicester tops
11. Shetland bunny tops
12. DIVA tops: a wonderful blend with some glitz and superfine merino, cashmere and bunny
13. Black Bunny: a super duper BLACK bunny blend with black silk and black bunny
14. NEW Outlander !! one of my favourite blends !! with soay sheep from the Scottish isles : the tiniest sheep in the world and super soft, this time with extra Mulberry silk to make it extra shinyyyy!
15. Hungarian Racka blend: another rare sheep breed which is so shiny and so nice to spin too!
16. Camelbunny silk and Cashmere: Another soft blend with baby camel, cashmere and bunny wih a huge amount of silk
17. Bunny Bison Bliss: Bison, bunny and cashmere with a dash of Tencel. Excellent to spin in lots of new handdyed colourways
18. NEW!!!! Happy Bunny: A fab blend with superfine merino in two colours and Australian hemp ! together with some very nice cashmere too and lots more !
19. NEW!!!! HAPPY SHEEP: to celebrate the sheep breed in focus this year at the show I have blended up a Polwarth Blend with Australian Hemp and more ! A truly happy blend !!!!
20. Mulberry silk tops
21. Leader sheep tops: A super special super rare breed from Iceland blended with amazing angora bunny and cashmere and more to make it excellent and soft to spin and wear !
22. Gothic Bunny Tops: Super fine merino, cashmere and angora with black silk in lots of new colourways.
23. Angora Bunny fibres and wallaby fibres
24. CASHMERE FLING tops !!!!
VARIOUS
1. Indigo dye kits
2. Osage orange dye kits
3. Spinning control cards
4. Hand dyed pre Felt
5. Buddhas tears tea
6. IxCHeL Bath Salts
7. Landscape dyes
8. BADGES!!! Lots of fun badges !!!!
LAIR OF THE BEARDED DRAGON WOOD TURNED AWESOMENESS!!!
Lair of the Bearded Dragon Spindles!!!
Support spindles, drop spindles, Turkish spindles, daelgan Scottish spindles, Navajo spindles, Spinning bowls, needle cases, nostepinne, wrist distaffs and so much more !!!!!!
I think I got everything on the list but I may have forgotten something….lol
There’s a wonderful new blend on offer tonight : Pearl Bunny !!! Thank you so much to all of you who sent me messages and offered their help ! I cannot thank you enough !
All my contact details and HOW TO ORDER can to be found at the end of this week’s blog entry.
The one new blend I am especially enthusiastic about for the Bendigo show are my Pearl Bunny tops with an amazing new and strange fibre: Chitin.( pronounced as “KIE-TIN” not "Shit-in" ) Anyhoo, Chitin is one of those elements that I always am on the look out for , just like the stainless steel blend from years ago I unleashed on all of you. I am always looking outside of the box to combine either technology, science, bizarness, call it what you like, into my special blends. This one took a bit of doing and literally years of combining science with the craft of blending different fibres together. But, let me start by explaining what exactly brought me to add shitin..eh..i mean..Chitin... to my fibre blends ready for handspinning :
Chitin was discovered by the French chemist and pharmacist Henri Braconnot in 1811 and, after cellulose, it's the most important biopolymer in nature. In fact, it is made of the exoskeleton of insects, shellfish and Shells. Chitin is a polysaccharide.
Chemically speaking it looks like a long-chain in which pearls are molecules of N-acetylglucosamine. The N-glucosamine is a very important substance for the human organism, in fact, it is the precursor of hyaluronic acid and it is used in therapies for the functional recovery of the joints.
Chitin is also widely used in the medical world to make suture wires because it can be degraded by enzymes present in human tissue. It is also used as wound dressing, enormously important to treat burn victims. Chitin has a remarkable strength and it accelerates the healing of wounds. (want to delve deeper into some research?
Here are some publications in the international journal of Niological Macromolecules: www.brommarin.com/blog-en/blog-posts/publications%20chitin%20scaffolds%20tissue%20engineering.php
As a medical anthropologist, the medical application of a fibre always peaks my interest and so I did some more research. So wait , there is more !
Obviously I will not tell you to eat the Pearl bunny tops, but Chitin has many other applications than medical suture wires and wound dressing. It is also extensively used in and pharmaceutical products. It is often used as a food thickener and stabilizer, and it can also form edible films. Chitin is also used in supplements to manage healthy cholesterol levels and body weight. Additional uses of chitin include the support of kidney function. Some early research shows that Chitin supports the body’s natural ability to heal skin damage and nerve regrowth.
Now something that really alerted me to the oddity of this fibre is based on , well, is it a protein or cellulose fibre? The chemical answer to that question is , well, interesting to say the least Chitin, being derived from shells, made me think it was more like a protein than a cellulose fibre since there is obviously no cellulose in a crab. So I looked deeper into the chemical structure of Chitin and here it is:
Chitin is a “polymerized N-acetylglucosamine. The only thing you need to remember from that extremely long a word is “glucos” and “Amine” which opens a whole other box of contradictions, because Glucose is a cellulose and Amine is a Protein. Could it be the best of both worlds then? And the short answer of it is : YES!
In my top notch dye laboratory (please note the sarcasm) I tested this odd fibre with both fibre reactive and acid dyes ! Bingo ! The fibre takes both acid dyes and fibre reactive dyes! Very odd isn’t it?
In the chemical structure of the Chitin you can see the OH (hydroxide) Highlighted in pink , which is helpful in reactive dyeing , and the NH and NH2 , which are necessary for acid dyeing. So there you go: chitin is one of those bizarre fibres that will bind with both acid and reactive dyes. However, when you closely look at the structure you can see that there are way more hydroxide “binding sites” (just look at how many OH’s there are for short ). So after all that research I have to admit it’s like a cellulose/plant fibre that loves acting like a protein/animal fibre… I hope I satisfied your inner bio chemist and can't wait to do some of your own research..eh .. spinning.
The blend spins up like a dream! It is a bit cool to the touch, has a gorgeous drape, feels very silky. Totally different from any blend with bamboo or soy or seacell (seaweed) or even tencel. I love working with it and it will make an excellent jumper as well (or socks) since the tensile strength is huge and it also has excellent anti bacterial properties (read that as : it is great for combating sweaty feet and armpits).
So, here they are: Pearl Bunny Tops (I thought that was a better name than calling it Bunny Crabs....let's not go there LOL)
Pearl Bunny Tops
A blend of Superfine Merino, Angora Bunny, Cashmere, Chitin
100g AU$25
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| Natural |
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| Gem Corn Magic |
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| Rainforest |
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| Starry Night |
More and more people are telling me they absolutely love working with the IxCHeL Tweed yarns. There will be lots of photos after the Bendigo show and I am working on some more colours as well !! More on that later in the month. If you want to see more photos please go to my facebook or Instagram pages.
IxCHeL Tweed fingering weight yarn
Super soft lambswool 70% and Kid Mohair 30%
Spun singles, fingering or sock weight yarn
+/- 200meters/218yards
50grams 1.76oz
AU$16
Wattle
(A beautiful sunshine yellow that goes so well with the kookaburra the silver grey)
(A beautiful sunshine yellow that goes so well with the kookaburra the silver grey)
Kata Tjuta (an intense pure red that goes well with the Kookaburra and the Wattle and the Amethyst colourway and soooooomany others)
Amethyst
(a bright purple colourway with bright red flecks)
(a bright purple colourway with bright red flecks)
Kookaburra(a beautiful silver grey with ochre accents that complement the dingo colourway)
Dingo( A beautiful warm honey ochre with pops of royal bluebell, kingfisher and kangaroo paw)
Grevillea(a gorgeous raspberry base with pops of royal bluebell, flowering gum, grey and daintree)
Flowering Gum
( a gorgeous medieval warm red with bright red, kookaburra and fern forest accents)
( a gorgeous medieval warm red with bright red, kookaburra and fern forest accents)
Fern Forest ( a deep forest green with accents of bright red, dusky purple and daintree) )
Jacarandah ( a fabulous deep purple with accents of royal bluebell, daintree, grevillea and kingfisher )
Wombat( a fabulous deep walnut brown with accents of dingo and kookaburra)
Kangaroo Paw ( a fabulous warm orange with accents of fern forest, royal bluebell and grevillea and dingo )
isn’t it gorgeous how the Kangaroo paw knits up?! )
Royal Bluebell ( a deep blue with accents of flowering gum, kookaburra and fern forest )
Wallaby( a warm light brown with accents of soft blue and kookaburra)
Daintree ( a soft green with accents of fern forest and dingo)
Kingfisher ( a fabulous Turquoise blue with accents of fern forest, kangaroo paw, Jacaranda and Grevillea)
Pm me if you would like to give some of these amazing new IxCHeL Tweed yarns or the Buddhas tears tea a good home or if you want to sign up for the IxCHeL Clubs ! Enjoy looking and have a fun weekend !
Please don't hesitate to contact me at any time if you have any questions okay? Always happy to enable. All my contact details are to be found at the end of this week’s blog entry.
IxCHeL Buddhas tears tea
carefully packed and presented in a special organza gift bag
50g/ AU$19
Two organically grown superior green tea leaves and a jasmine bud are plucked from the best quality tea bushes and mixed with delicately smelling jasmine blossoms, then sieved and hand rolled on bamboo trays, into small balls while the leaves are not quite dry.
The leaf captures the fine jasmine aroma and releases it during brewing, giving a champagne coloured cup.
Brewing: 1-3 minutes 75-80degC ,
4 pearls/cup,
you can reinfuse 3-4 times so those 4 pearls last a looong time
Carefully handrolled tea
Enjoy the tea over and over again, by adding hot water again and again
All my contact details are here:
Please don't hesitate to contact me at any time if you have any questions okay? Always happy to enable. All my contact details are to be found at the end of this week’s blog entry.
Have a fun weekend !!!
How To Order:
1. You can email me on ixchel at rabbit dot com dot au or ixchelbunny at yahoo dot com dot au
2. Message me on facebook or
3. Message me on www.ravelry.com where I am ixchelbunny.
4. message me on Instagram where I am @ixchelbunny
I will email you right back with all your order details and payment methods.
Any questions? Any custom orders for yarn or dyeing fibre? : Please don’t hesitate to ask! Always happy to enable.
Dates to put in your Calendar
|
Carefully handrolled tea
|
Enjoy the tea over and over again, by adding hot water again and again
All my contact details are here:
Have a fun weekend !!!
How To Order:
1. You can email me on ixchel at rabbit dot com dot au or ixchelbunny at yahoo dot com dot au
2. Message me on facebook or
3. Message me on www.ravelry.com where I am ixchelbunny.
4. message me on Instagram where I am @ixchelbunny
I will email you right back with all your order details and payment methods.
Any questions? Any custom orders for yarn or dyeing fibre? : Please don’t hesitate to ask! Always happy to enable.
2. Message me on facebook or
3. Message me on www.ravelry.com where I am ixchelbunny.
4. message me on Instagram where I am @ixchelbunny
I will email you right back with all your order details and payment methods.
Any questions? Any custom orders for yarn or dyeing fibre? : Please don’t hesitate to ask! Always happy to enable.
Dates to put in your Calendar
Friday July 19th to Sunday July 21st
Australian Sheep and Wool Show, BendigoGo to http://www.sheepshow.com to see what is happening and book your tickets. The Bendigo Sheep and Wool show is the biggest wool show in Australia ! with an amazing amount of woolcraft, indie dyers, a huge amount of tops, yarn, craft, felt and spindles, spinning wheels and anything you need for your knitting,crocheting and crafting.
I will be there with an amazing amount of new exclusive wool blends and yarns, batts, felt and landscape and botanical natural dyes and so much more !!!
I will also have spindles by the amazing Bearded Dragon and lots of fibre tools as well from darning mushrooms to noste pinne, Turkish spindles, Navajo and Mayan spindles, Turkish spindles and needle cases to distaffs, and something amazing for spinners and knitters.
Get ready for a fabulous weekend filled with lots of craft and fun !!!
RABBIT ON !
((hugs))
Charly
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