this blogging thing is pretty neat

I got stuff! Excellently timed, too, because I am unaccountably crabby today. But look! Look! Is it not beee-yooo-teee-ful? (click to biggern)
Amy sent me these! And they are my favorite colors and silk+merino is my favorite fiber (as of today) and clearly my whining about limited Malabrigo availability* has been heard, which is actually a very bad lesson, isn't it? Because this would seem to indicate that whining pays off, and I should do more of it!

No, no, I'm more intelligent than that. Not much more, but...

Anyway.

The book was blogged about here, and I commented on it without ANY IDEA that it was intended for me. I was so surprised when I saw it, I said, "HA!" loud enough to startle my kids. I recognize the card too, I think Amy blogged about the artist as well, but it may actually have been someone else... And I love the bag, it's my favorite color and so nice I'm kind of afraid to use it.

So, one thousand thank-yous Amy, for the box of awesome! I love all of it.

* Malabrigo is actually available in Germany, via this company, but the photos on the site are so bad, I'm afraid to order anything from them.

I say nothing.

You know how, when you have a secret that you can't write about, sometimes you find that you can't write about anything at all? Yeah. It's like that.

I'll tell you later, I really will. With pictures and everything.

FO!

Oh Heavens, I almost forgot: I finished Henry today! Really finished-finished, tucked in the ends, wrapped it in blue cellophane, put it on DrBob's desk.


So, notes. Hm. Well, I used silk dyed with vegetable dyes, that I bought at a craft market. I asked the dyer if she has a website, but she said she doesn't believe in the internet. Too bad, because you should see her stuff, there's this mulberry-red color that would have made something fantastic for my mom, but I didn't buy that because... well, you know.

Anyway, it was significantly heavier than what the recipe called for, and it was kind of... um, unslippery - I had to push it along the needles and working with it made my hands a bit tired, but not horribly so. The weight difference means it's probably quite a bit longer than the designer intended, plus it's thinner than the recipe wanted, because I just knit until I ran out of yarn, basically, which wasn't very long: this was pretty cheap for silk, but silk? Is not cheap. Anyway, the recipe says 5 feet by 8 inches. Mine's about 7 feet by 6 inches. I also learned a new method of binding off (um, tubular? sewn? something like that) that I now want to use for everything.

So yeah. It was a lot of work, but I'm really happy with it. And I probably won't knit it again. Why knit something twice? That's what socks are for.

what was in the bag...

Why, yarn , of course! Some very exciting fluffy bulky stuff:


Some beautiful shiny dark green stuff:

Cotton and viscose, ooo.

No idea what this is, but I really like it:

If I were going to name it, I would call it "Naiad."

Some sheeny Rowan Damask (my first Rowan, squeee!):


And last but certainly not least, oh I'm so excited...

MALABRIGO! Wooot!

Again, thank you Secret Pal for the supercalifragilistic-expialidocious yarn! Yay!

Secret Pal strikes again!

Heeeewack! Teh awesome arrived in the mail today! Looky!

As always, click to embiggen. Okay okay okay, what have we here... a bear. In a bathrobe! Love that! Ignatz giggled too.

She's also wearing this beaded headband thing that I just love. It's just twisted wire and beads, and black elastic, but when I tried it on and checked the mirror, I said "ooo! I'm a pretty princess!" (that's a video link, so possibly nsfw). I think I actually said it aloud. How embarrassing. It really is shiny and happy, though. Unfortunately, my hair is so slippery (really, I can't keep anything in it for long) that the headband creeps up toward the back of my head. If I had short hair, it would probably eventually just shoot right off my head and scare the cats! Haha! Wouldn't that be GREAT!?

Ahem. Um. Next? A travel-cup! Have I blogged about how dependent I am on porta-coffee? I don't think I have, so I don't know how she knew, but I totally am. I love this. I particularly love that it's from Starbucks, and says "decorate your own damn cup! We're tired of thinking up spiffy new designs!" I'm paraphrasing.

A red-and-silver holly ornament! Sparkly! So pretty! Totally going on the tree every year until forever. Also some foil-wrapped chocolate ornaments which have absolutely no chance of gracing our next Christmas tree. I notice that there are four, and that my family has four chocolate-eating members, but I'm sure that's just coincidence.

Then! A notepad! And! It's magnetic! And has a penguin! This will definitely be used. There were also some Post-its that didn't make their way into the photo for some reason... oh, right, here they are. They'll also be used. The house will be festooned with pale blue exclamation points and DrBob will give me That Look.

Then there are two books that are clearly meant for Ignatz but will certainly be read by me as well: Shade's Children, by Garth Nix, whom I've heard of and meant to get around to reading for some time now; and The Warrior Heir (love that cover) by Cinda Williams Chima, whom I've never heard of, but that's okay. Ignatz sez "cool." He's thirteen.

Next up is a pack of Yu-Gi-Oh cards, clearly for the Sniglet, and also this neato Matchstick Garden thing, which will also be for him because he's into that sort of thing right now.

Did I miss anything? Oh! Look at that groovy bag with the amaryllis on it! Exactly when I needed it, too: just yesterday I put the beginnings of Kelly's Kauni sweater in a plastic bag, Maggie Righetti's words ringing in my ears ("Don't let me see you dragging your knitting around in a crappy plastic bag!" or something to that effect). The timing on this is nothing short of amazing.

Oh, and Fufu loves the bag. She rubbed her face on it for like half an hour. No idea why. I hope she doesn't try to eat it...

Even better is what's in the amaryllis bag. That's for tomorrow's post. Heh heh heh.

Thank you Secret Pal! You are awesome!

here's a picture!

(click to embiggen)

It's some yarn! (On a knitblog, imagine that.) This came in the mail today, from the lovely, lovely people at Woll-Sucht, who also sent gummi bears and tea! And they speak English! And I love them.

I also love this yarn, and the cardigan it's going to make, although I am fiddling around with alternatives to the squares. This is my next project, and it's big and involves (gasp) steeking! This qualifies it as stunt-knitting, but I'm up for it. This winter I need something warm and woolly in my lap, and sheep are too heavy and I can't get the damn cats to sit still. It'll take awhile, though. It's for Kelly, and if I'm lucky I should be able to get it to her in time for her birthday. You know, in April, when spring really starts heating up in Maryland. Ooo, unforeseen problem. Maybe I could convince her to move to Australia.

boo!

It's the Incredible Disappearing Knitblogger! Um, yeah. I am working on... stuff. To blog, I need to take pictures of things, and for that I need light, and you know what? It's January. And then it will be February, and there will be more light but I will be even crabbier! Not sure how that works, but 37 years of observation have shown it to be true.

So. I'm just poking my head out of the trenches to say I'm still here and I haven't forgotten y'all. And now you're all, I clicked all the way over to your blog, and this is all I get!?

Yes. Yes, it is.