We Love Surprises!! - Part II

Usually surprises are far and few between around here, but the past month has been a bonanza of surprises! Did I say I love surprises? Oh yes, I think I did...

Here's the latest surprise to show up in my mailbox last week---the Defeat the Winter Doldrums swap box from my lovely and generous pal, Katie! It was hard to fit all of the contents in one picture...

Wow, what a box! Katie sent a fabulous dishcloth and two matching scrubbies in a pink/tan color that I love, as well as another plus-size cloth with a rubber-duckie motif--hard to see in pic, but so cute! (BTW, Katie and I share a little secret concerning rubber ducks, which shall be revealed at a later date.) The yarn is Knitpicks Cot-Lin, which I've been wanting to try, in a beautiful bright turquoise color as well.

There is also an assortment of tea bags, soaps, a candle, a notepad and a heart-shaped sucker! And down at the very bottom of the picture, there are some truly gorgeous stitch markers that Katie made, which deserve a much bigger picture of their own...



Hard to capture in a picture, but aren't they especially pretty? I absolutely love them and will use them often!

Thanks so, so very much, Katie, for all of the lovely gifts you sent! I couldn't have chosen more perfect colors for everything if I had chosen them myself! Your box and your great note truly made my day!

Katie is not only a swap pal extraordinaire and the sweetest girl ever, she is also adventurous and brave and works as a pilot! Yes, she actually flies big jets for a living. Go over to her blog and pay her a visit, and see a picture of her in the cockpit! How awesome is that? Not just your average knit-blogger, that's for sure! (...but I can see why her mom gets nervous sometimes when she reads her blog...).

Thanks, Nikki! :)

A few weeks ago I entered a contest on Nikki's blog, and I won! I was so excited to win her contest, even though my history with blog contests has not been the greatest (more about that another time, so as not to detract from the thanks to Nikki and the display of goodies...).

Nikki was so sweet and actually "stalked" my blog to see what I might like. So not only was she nice enough to send a prize, but she cared enough to personalize it as well! She sent some lovely wool in shades of denim blues for a future felting project, which I absolutely love, some stitch markers (always very handy and used often by me), and a cute little sheep figure and sheep card. She even sent a prize for my precious minions as well---a catnip mouse!



Thanks so much for the lovely prizes, Nikki, from both myself and the minion posse! You are a lovely knitblogger, indeed!

While the wool was well-protected from the mitts of ravaging minions during the picture-taking and put away snugly after the photos were taken, unfortunately I cannot say the same about the fate of the poor mousie. I had to beat the minions off of the unfortunate creature long enough to get a picture, but then the carnage began---there was nothing I could do. First the toe-cat had a go at him...


After some fierce, extra-toed abuse, this was followed by a steal by the techno-cat....


who then gave the ill-fated mousie an advanced level thrashing of the worst kind....


....the dreaded bite-claw-kick combo! Ouch! Poor mousie. Let's just say he's not looking so good right now.

However, the cat posse would like me to say in their defense, that the mousie had a snarky smirk on his face from the minute he arrived here that they just didn't like, and he had the nerve to come around smelling like catnip, so of course he had it coming to him! They would never condone an unprovoked attack. Almost never. Not sometimes. (Well, mostly always...but they are minions, after all).

Thanks again, Nikki! We all love our prizes :)

>^oo^< >^,,^< >^--^<

LYS Tour Stash Flash!

Before I commence with the yarn pron display....I found out what a "Red Delicious" bag is when I went to pick up the prize I won in a drawing at Spin A Yarn yesterday....

I've seen these bags before, though not in this particular color combo. I keep staring at it trying to decide if I like it, or if it's so fugly only it's grandmother could love it. What do you think? It is a well-made and lined, large bag and will be great for toting some knitting around. Not something I would spend almost $100 for, but I appreciate winning it as a prize. By the way, this fabric is no longer listed on the website, so I guess that would make this bag "vintage."

Okay, now on to the serious business. I know you've been clamoring to see the extent of my excesses from the lost weekend of yarn gluttony, AKA The LYS Tour 2007. So without further ado I present to you, gorgeous stash acquisitions (and a few regular ones that I picked up along the way....):

Here's the top three fondle-worthy additions:

Fleece Artist Suri Blu, destined to become this wrap. It is BFL wool and alpaca, and incredibly soft, pastel-y and yummy....

(Also shown is Toebi, my trusty assistant...)

Next is some Sea Silk in a color that is hard to do justice to in a picture---sort of an ethereal-looking light green with pale blue combo, destined for a summer lace wrap...

If you are one of the two knitting people on the planet that have not felt this yarn, you must find some immediately and feel how soft and silky it is! I am starting on this wrap immediately, so I can take it to knit on vacation, and hopefully even wear it before winter sets in...(The Sea Silk is shown being inspected by the official Technocat, Mochi, who showed his approval by walking away disinterestedly immediately after this picture was taken....)

To round out the top three is the yarn that won the prize for "most money spent in one store" on the tour. Yes, that's right, five skeins of the infamous Socks That Rock! Not all of them are destined for socks---a few are to make other projects I have in mind....

(In case you are interested, the colors are : Little Bunny Foo-Foo, Nodding Violet, Footzy-Foo and Stormy Weather). I really tried to control myself, but when I saw some of those colors in person, and under the influence of road delirium....I couldn't be trusted. To my credit, I did put back a couple of skeins before I bought these---so I did good, right?!

There is still more stash to flash, sock yarn and small skein purchases, but I'll save those for another day. A girl can't be seen flashing everything at once, now can she?

Positive energy flow

My requests for crossed fingers and positive energy to be sent my way must be starting to work. I received an email from Spin a Yarn in Edmonds that I have won a prize from their drawing last weekend! The email said I have won the "Red Delicious Bag." I really have no idea what that is, but it's a prize and I won it!

So if you are one of those nice people out there who has been sending good wishes my way, please keep it coming until the big drawing! I'm not sure when that is going to be held, but hopefully it will be soon.

I'm finally beginning to feel like my back is no longer a car-seat-shaped pretzel. That was some serious road time in the car this past weekend. But I guess having a back that felt like crispy snack food for a few days was a small price to pay for the fun I had.

Yesterday was booty-unpacking and organizing day. It was quite the pile when gathered in one place, but I didn't suffer much anxiety when I saw it all---I guess that can wait until the credit card bill arrives... There is some seriously gorgeous stuff in that mass of yarniness, and I photographed all of it yesterday. Unfortunately I haven't uploaded them to my computer, so no pictures yet....sorry!

I realized while taking the pics that I purchased way more sock yarn than I thought (what a surprise...), so my poor sock stash basket is bursting and overflowing! I now own enough sock yarn to clothe the feet of a family of centipedes.

Keep the positive energy flow coming, y'all! I know it's helping and I still have high hopes for that LYS gift certificate! I'll let you know what the "Red Delicious Bag" is when I find out...

Should I be buying lottery tickets...?

Apparently, this is my lucky week and I should be out taking advantage of it somehow in a big way. I am a person who never, let me repeat, never wins anything in any kind of contest, drawing, lottery, etc. Zip. Nada. Never happens.

But somehow, within the last 5 days I've won something....TWICE! Yes, I'm a winner, and I'm so excited! You might think it strange that I would get so excited over winning a couple of prizes, but you have to understand, people----I never win anything!! Which is why I am wondering if, during the one week of my entire life to date I have won something, twice, if I should be out wastin some dollars on some lottery tickets or something. I mean, this could be my big chance, and maybe I shouldn't let it just walk on by....

As for what I won....Last week I was at a career fair, of all things, and filled out one of those slips at one of the booths for a drawing. (Translation: We are never going to give you anything, but put your name in this bowl so we can call and irritate you until the end of time....). As I was walking around the corner to leave (boring career fair---the worst kind), a lady from the booth where I had entered approached me and said I had just won a prize and to come and pick out which one I wanted. Yippee! Nice consolation for wasting my day at boring career fair. I was happy! And did I mention? I never win anything, so that was reward enough in itself. For that prize, I got to pick out a nice gift basket from Bath & Body works---very nice!

Then this morning, I found a new blog comment from Jenifer saying that I had won a prize in her blog contest! Yay! Second win in five days! Very exciting! I have no idea what I have won from Jenifer yet but it's going to be something from her stash, so it involves yarn and that has to be good! Thanks, Jenifer!

Okay, so I've gone from never winning anything in all my decades on this planet, to TWO wins within one week! I'm thinkin it might be foolish to ignore such sudden winning mojo and I should be heading out for those lottery tickets. Or, did my lifetime supply of winning mojo just expire itself in one week, and I should skip the lottery tickets like usual....? Hmmm. If you have an answer to this one, let me know before my luck runs out.....

Amongst all of this earth-shattering excitement, that has also been a very small amount of knitting, but mostly lots of trips to the frog pond for the past few days. Picked up my slightly neglected Wavy Wrap to work on it, and first row into working on it, managed to screw up enough to wonk the stitch count completely with no way to figure out WTF I did. You will notice that said Wavy Wrap no longer exists on my sidebar as a WIP. Sadly, it has died. However, I'm not so sad about it, because starting and ending every row with new yarn by leaving a 10" tail was kinda getting on my nerves. Sounded fun when I started, but after about 15 rows, I wasn't feeling the love for it so much any more.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with the two large skeins of yarn which came in amounts correct for the pattern they came with. There is one skein of Fleece Artist Big Baby and one skein of Mo. I'm sure I'll use it for something eventually, but I wish I would have known I wouldn't like knitting the pattern before I spent the money for the kit. Frolic of a foolish knitter---live and learn. I guess I won't be doing that again...

For now, they will be buried at the bottom of the stash basket until the current guilt level subsides and I can appreciate them for their individual loveliness. Right now, if left in plain sight they mock me from the basket "you dork you bought us together in an expensive kit and you messed up and now you're not going to make the kit project and you are a quitter and a dumb ole money waster yarn waster who shouldn't be trusted with expensive yarn nonny-nonny nyah-nyah..."

Who knew yarn could be so cruel? But it's true. And it's really embarrassing to explain all that yarn taunting me when people come over, so better that it stays buried for now.

Still haven't blocked my ISE4 scarf for no particular reason. I guess I should get on that this week so I can mail it out in time, since it's going to another country. I also need to shop for some send-along goodies.

Progressing slowly on the MD linen hand towel after starting over on it several times due to gauge issues. I do ask myself occasionally why I would want a $20 hand towel knit on small needles. I can't explain it except for the fact that I just want one. For this, I blame Ginger, because though I have had the MD book for a while, seeing her lovely pink version made me want to make one. I would never have succumbed to such a project without seeing one already made, because the pictures in the book don't do them justice at all. Anyway, the Euroflax is kinda fun to knit with and it's a good spring project.

Getting ready to cast on for my third pair of socks, but I have too many choices! My sock stash has grown to such proportions, that I'm having trouble deciding which one to pick out of the crowd to knit and with what pattern! I am paralyzed by decision-making that is not on a deadline, so this could take a while. Perhaps I'll wait until after my lace-knitting workshop this weekend to see what ends up OTN while I'm there before deciding on my next socks.

I'm really looking forward to the workshop this weekend! It is a lace-designing workshop with Evelyn Clark, being held at a lakeside cabin. Though I don't have much lace-knitting experience it should be a fun and educational weekend for me! The organizers assured me that lace experience is not necessary as long as I know the stitches involved, and we will be learning all sorts of stuff about chart-reading and designing our own shawls. We'll also be receiving a copy of Evelyn's new book! I love her patterns, so I'm sure the book will be great!

Well, I'm off to buy those lottery tickets....or not....