That trollup, Rain!

Several months ago I asked Rain to do me a favor and send some stuff to my SP who loved British "food" which she did. In return I sent her some yarn from Knit Picks. Just a trifling of stuff since the international postage boxes are pretty small. Friday afternoon I get the mail and find a package. A package absolutely stuffed with candy, stickers, trinkets for the kids, yarn, and a fantastic handbag made especially for me by one of the busiest knitters on the planet. What a bitch! How dare she send me an adorable bag, more yarn, and other assorted nifty things! I may indeed beat her with a toilet brush as she suggested in her note. I have the distinct impression she may have just started a gift war that will cause me no end of internaitional postage issues. In other words, thanks Rain, we loved it!The kids had an absolute blast with the punching ballons and used the stickers to decorate Father's Day cards for Red Todd Kidd. We haven't gotten to the candy yet but we will. Oh, we will. We had to put it in the fridge because I could tell it was melted and then I forgot about it until just now. Okay, it's mostly gone now. Yum. Cadbury... Ahem. Anyway, I carried my new little handbag all weekend. The very first place it got to go was to my sister and cousin's graduation. They both graduated from college (University of Phoenix, no not in Arizona, a private college with lots of locations) this weekend and were very excited. My sister is one of about three people ever to go to our local comunity college and eventually get a degree. Way to go!

How'd I get on this bandwagon?

Yeah, it is what you think it is (Notice the unintentional diffused glow that alerted me to clean the camera lens, makes it look almost other worldly, eh?). It's a Jaywalker. I don't know what compelled me to do it but suddenly I looked down and I had an inch of ribbing on my size 1US DPNs. I swear I don't even remember winding that skein of All Things Heather (gift from the lovely Keohinani) into a ball but there was that inch of ribbing and it was time to start that pattern stitch. I've picked up and put down the DPNs quite a few time since I found that ribbing in my hand and I'm always astonished at how quickly it seems to be going. Until I got to the heel. Now, I've made socks before and I have never understood why some people don't get turning a heel. To me it seems intuitive. I've never had any heel turning trouble to talk tabout (the alliteration is out of control!). The trouble I had with this particular sock was with the reinforcing thread. I couldn't seem to choose one. They all looked crappy. I'm not sure I'm happy with the one I ultimately chose but I do know that I'm not ripping that damned heel out again. Also, purling across a sliped stitch heel pisses me off. I don't like it. I am pretty proud of how neatly the stitches look where I picked up around the gussets. Usually I get one perfect side and one that pulls but this time it's looking pretty sweet. All in all I'm pretty happy with this pattern. Hopefully I'll be able to finish this sock and it's mate for my MIL for Mothers' Day and then I'll go back and finish Crumbs. I'm not stalling on it so much as I just can't find the beads and I have to string more. That's a "GRR!" for another post though. (The color is more accurate in the first picture)

Best. Day. (For mail.) Ever.

(Click the images for larger views) I got TWO packages in the mail this morning! One came all the way from the UK, sent by my lovely SP, Glittrgirl. The other came from the oposite direction, sent by the wonderful Keohinani. Over there to the left you can see my package from Glittrgirl which included a cute green bag (linen?), two balls of Noro Aurora in color 6, some Earl Grey tea, a bar of delicious soap that I MUST HAVE MORE OF! Ahem, a cute stuffed bunny (Lola has made off with it already) that she knitted, a box of Lindor truffles, A felted pincushion, a blank journal, some english candies, a ball of Curious Yarns sock yarn in Gothic, and a couple of stitch markers! Oh the last few things were in the green purse so I tool a second pic to show those. So many goodies! Oh, and the card says, "Honey, you gotta sin to be saved!" I love it! That's going to get used in a project eventually I think... As for the box from Keohinani, I knew she was sending me some of her handspun but what I didn't know is that she saw it was my birthday and sent some extra goodies along. First off, she's so dang sweet she sent me a box of presents and she thanked me! I can't wait to get to her incredibly soft handspun. It's going to be the first thing I grab when the birthday knitting for Miss Beans is done. It's bright and soft and I can't wait! Anyway, she also sent along a bit of her handspun that isn't dyed and I may just hit that with some kool-aid, I haven't decided yet. Then there were the extras, 440yards of self striping sock yarn from All Things Heather (jaywalkers?), a little purple journal, some soap from the Body Shop (do I smell?), and a box of some crazy Japanese... candy? I don't know, I didn't open it yet. She calls it a party in a box. I call it my lucky day. Hooray for me! I feel so special!

I was RAKed!

It's been a miserable around here lately. The kids are sick. Blogger was mad at me. I've been getting a ton of dental work done and consequently haven't been able to eat anything much since Saturday. Yep, root canal on Saturday. Went in for a consultation, ended up with a root canal. Plus it took an extra hour because my nerves are "screwey" and only part of the tooth was numb. I knew that was coming though because that's what happened when I had my wisdom tooth in that area out. Monday I got all my upper right fillings replaced. I can't chew. I have to go back next Tuesday. I still need the crown on the tooth that had the root canal, another crown, all my other fillings replaced, my other two wisdom teeth pulled, and a cleaning. We've financed all of this, $201/month for the next 2 years. It just sucks. But then, Monday afternoon, a package arrived. It was from Zknitter. It had two lovely balls of red merino wool, a pair of size 11 Lion Brand plastic needles, a box of stitch markers (the pretty beaded kind), and some knitterly notecards. Hooray! Instant cheering up. I've already started knitting up the yarn as you can see in the picture. It's the beggining of a hat but I'm sure it won't end up a hat. They never do. In the spirit of giving, I planning to RAK some folks here pretty soon. Yes indeed, I've got four adresses sitting here next to a bunch of Kool-Aid. All I need to do is wait for payday so I can afford postage. I'm also going to be ordering some stuff from knitpicks, hopefully they'll send it to the right house this time. I need yarn for Baby Girl's halloween costume. I need to make her a hat that looks like Princess Leia's hair. Fun, fun, fun. Well, I went and ordered the yarn for the Wig/Hat, I had to put in extra stuff to make the $30 free shipping quota so I ended up getting the Elizabeth I pattern that I've been eyeing for quite awhile and three balls of Alpaca Cloud in Iris (for Grandma Iris), Moss (for Tara), and Autumn (I think for me but they never end up for me so we'll see). Oh goody more projects with deadlines. I think I'm drawing the line there for Christmas though. Maybe something for my sister, I'll try to get Blaze done for Mom, but I'm not going to kill myself knitting this year. Cookie Lee for the ladies where ever possible.