Thursday, May 24, 2007

Bad, bad blogger...

...and bad, bad gift recipient. See, I've been lucky enough to have received a couple of wonderful gifts over the last few weeks, but I haven't yet acknowledged the generosity on this blog. So time to rectify the oversight! Each gift is so wonderful that each should gets its own blog post. So we'll start with the one I got first, which was another package from my Secret Pal:


I got 3 balls of Patons SWS in Natural Plum. This is 70% wool and 30% soy - love the fibers created from non-traditional sources! And the colors really are wonderful. SP also sent me a pattern for "My So-Called Scarf" to make with this, which I think will look totally fabulous! I also got some Life Saver candies and a yarn cutter pendant. I also got some chocolates that have (ahem) somehow (uh) just, uh, well, I guess they just aren't around any more. :)

But my favorite item in this package is the little dandy on the left. Let's see it close up, shall we?

This is sock yarn that my lovely SP hand-dyed just for me! She calls the color "Blurple," which describes it perfectly. I love it! I've never had personally hand-dyed yarn before, so I'm so thrilled to have gotten this. They are definitely going to end up as socks for me!





Thanks again, SP, and please accept my humblest apologies for not posting this sooner.

Though I haven't been blogging, there's actually been quite a bit of knitting going on. I'm still plugging away at the hubby's Shifting Sands scarf. Yikes, I know, this was supposed to be a birthday present for him (and his birthday was in March). But I figure he doesn't need it until at least the fall now, so it's been easy to put it to the side. But I've recently needed some mindless knitting, so I've made some good progress on it and probably only need another 4 or 5 inches on it before I can bind off. I really love the way the scarf looks and can't wait to post the final product.

I've also been knitting many baby things - some for Knitdds, whose little squeaker (as she so affectionately dubbed him) made an early arrival, so I had to finish up a hat (the pattern is from the One Skein book) and some little baby socks (the pattern for which I found somewhere on the Interweave web site). I had also made a baby blanket (a pretty simple basket weave pattern with garter stitch border). Of course, I forgot to take pictures of all these things before giving them to her. Oops.

Well, I'm off to exciting Louisville, KY to attend a cousin's wedding extravaganza. And I mean extravaganza, as there are 3 days of festivities planned. I'll post my other awesome knitted gift when I return!