So, I was upstairs feeding MMT when MathMan came home this afternoon. I hear him laboring up the stairs and he comes into the room with a laundry basket full of clothes for me to fold (thanks, dear.....) Sitting on top? Not one but two, count them, TWO packages for l'il ole me! One was two teapots I ordered from e-bay. You can check them out here.
I grabbed the second - I squealed. I saw the name on the return address - I squealed louder! It was my LaceSwap package!!! My pal was Shelby, and MAN did she put together a nice package!!! About 1500 yards of a beautiful handdyed laceweight merino/silk blend. It's so lovely and squishy and soft....and the colors are beautiful! Tones of blue with green, tan, and aqua, and a few undyed spots for good measure. Reminds me of a peacock feather! She included the Gothic Leaf Stole from Sivia Harding. She definitely did her homework on me - she included two pairs of chopsticks with lovely cases, a maple tree kit to grow one of my own, and some maple tea. Mmmm....maple tea! How could your mouth not water! And to top it all off, she's from the land of my favorite team - Go Canucks!!! (Yes, I live in the desert, and yes, I love hockey. I even met MathMan at a NM hockey game. Gotta problem with it!?! :) )




I leave you with a close-up of the gorgeous yarn...
ETA - I adore the GIMP, thanks to the auto-levels feature, this is the truest to color I think I could possibly get!

First up, my first completed sock. I finished the first of two River Rapids. I really like how it came out, now I just have to cast on for the second sock. Sadly, I don't see it happening soon - Miss Monkey Toes has gotten a good deal more squirmy, and those size twos are mighty pointy, so I'm not going to be knitting them very much for a little bit.






Next, is a tea cozy I knitted for a friend out of Patons SWS. Hopefully she doesn't see the blog before I give it to her, but I don't think I'm going to have to worry about that. I tried to make it with the pocket for scents, but it curled up far too much and I had to sew it down so the teapot would sit flat.
















Last, I have some fun fiber I got in the mail from MaryKay. Ten skiens of Rowanspun in Jade, and ten in Temptation. Goody, goody! Ahh, stash enhancement! I think I'm going to try to make a pair of Knucks out of two strands held together.


I've also got a bunch of different dishcloths done in blue and white for the mil, but I don't have them handy for a piccie. One I did in the Chinese Waves pattern, twisting the slipped stitches, and my right ring finger is still numb from how tight a knit it was.

I guess I'll finish up by confessing my guilt - I didn't take a picture for Saturday Sky. I did look at the sky, but there was just too much stuff to do that every time I thought about taking a picture, something would come up that needed to be taken care of right away. By the time that I had the ability to snap a shot, it was waaaay past dark. I'll make up for it next week.

From Works in Prog...

Here's a picture of those WIPs from the previous post, and something I forgot to mention (bad blogger!!) My newest sockbag from trek!! It has a purple ribbon, and most unexpected (and very happily so) a lavender lining! It's so me - punky yet femme....I <3 it!!

After years and years of waiting (well, it seemed like it anyways) I got a swap package!!!

From Bare Fiber, etc.

On the way home last night, MathMan stopped to get the mail and what did I spy in the box? A package key! Was it going to be a phonebook, Rxs from the mail order company, or...something else? It was my swapcloth package from KatieB!!! (Sadly, I don't know if she has a blog.) She made me two warshrags in gorgeous colors, and threw in a cute little knitting notecard, a knitting basket scrapbook embellishment, and two adorable knitting charms! (Oddly enough, I had been looking unsuccessfully for knitting charms in a jewelry catalog the day before! KatieB, you're a mindreader!) Thanks so much for everything!!! And I didn't even notice it was a recipe card, it was so cute!
I'm almost through the instep of River Rapids sock #1, and I'm on the second sleeve of Tubey. I've also been working on a new washcloth today, but I have no pictures for you. MissMonkeyToes hasn't felt wonderful today, and let me tell you just how long it takes to type up an entry lefthanded and without waking up a sleeping baby in your arms.
I leave you with Saturday Sky from out the window earlier this evening.

From Saturday Sky

This is my sky, out my front door, at twilight tonight. I've been doing a lot of knitting, but I'm cozy in bed right now so you get no pictures until tomorrow. I've gotten the handles on my Promenade bag, so it's truly finished now, and I've turned the heel on the River Rapids sock. Just the instep and toe, then the second sock. I managed to get the cuff done in just two days, but the rest is going markedly slower. I'm still slowly, yet surely plugging away at Tubey and Hoover, but nothing really visible.

I finally got some fun mail-y goodness yesterday! First up is a sock bag from trek:

Teal Sock Monkeys. I love sock monkeys! I don't know why. Maybe it's that I never had one when I was growing up. But wait! What's that peeking out of the bag? Could it be my River Rapids sock? Why, yes, I believe it is!



Confessions of a Knitting Heretic by Annie Modesitt. Can I just say yay for this book? Tons of useful stuff for us combined knitters, heck it's good stuff for every knitter. Knowing how stitches are formed is a great thing for any knitter.
Last night I made two apple pies. Haven't tried them yet, but one is for a BBQ that a friend is having tonight, the other is for us. I only had two cookie cutters, and I kinda thought that the dog bone wouldn't be very appropriate...

And I leave you with a cute little picture I found on Cute Overload. There was no credit, so I don't know who took it, but I imagine that they're a knitter!!

So here's the picture of everything. MMT needed to eat, so I had him take this picture. I really like how the slippers came out - matching, yet not match-y. I have a good deal of leftovers from each ball, but I don't know what I'm going to do with them. The other two balls in the picture have counterparts, so they may be other socks. Who knows.
So, I'm thinking about joining the Knitters Tea Swap 2, but I'm just not sure. I've been in two swaps so far, and I really enjoy giving gifts, but I've only heard from one swap partner once, and the deadline is over for that swap. Maybe it's my mail, or maybe I'm just not in a good mood (I'm hungry, and getting over being sick, two things that make me cranky...) but do I want to do it again? Something to think about.
So, this is what I want to turn the Koigu into. Toe-up, top-down, who cares. I love these socks. And check these out! I want the faces of woman ones. How cute!!

Oh - I forgot! My swapcloth partner got her package!!! Yay!

So, as of the last post, MathMan and MissMonkeyToes were just getting over being sick. What does that mean? Of course, it means that *I* start getting sick. Blecch. Though there was knitting to be had, after all, what else is there when stuck in bed with the TV on?
First up, there is the Hoover blanket, still growing (slowly) and still looking the same. Next up, there's Tubey. I got halfwy down the sleeve in a marathon session, and again!! It's baggy. I did the math. Swatched up and measured, everything. Still baggy. So that got ripped. I'm determined to have this sweater, though. It's been re-started again, hopefully for the last time. Then, a quick trip to Michael's for some size 8 DPNs and I came upon some Paton's SWS. I couldn't resist. I got two balls each in three colorways. As I was picking them up, I was thinking log cabin for MMT, but once I got home I decided on some slipper socks. I used the pattern form Knitty Gritty's Sock-It-To-Me episode. I finished the second one yesterday. This morning I got MathMan to help me wind a skein of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock into a ball and started River Rapids. I think it's time to have a discussion with myself about what I'm allowed to have on the needles at any given time. So here it is.
1. socks
2. lace
3. a sweater
4. a gift project, or something else that's small, quick, or not for me or MathMan
5. a simple, portable project, like a washcloth
6. one afghan
So lets look at what I have on the needles now. Tubey, the two-up socks out of Koigu, River Rapids in lorna's laces, a pair of fingerless mitts in Moda-Dea Simply Stripes, and MathMan's Linux Illusion Scarf. The last two are UFOs sitting in the back of a drawer as they are 100% acrylic scratchyness, but the first two I need to address. After finishing the slipper socks, I've realized that I prefer top down construction on socks, and I really don't like the way the koigu socks are working up, so I think I'm going to frog them in preference of this pattern worked top down. So once I do that, I'm going to be ok.
In other news, the only size 8 DPNs I could get at Michael's were Clover Bamboo. Oh. My. I get it now. They're so smooth, yet not slick. They feel so nice in my hands, light and manageable. And I like how blunt the tips are. I may just have to get several in different sizes. Plus, I grabbed a size 8 circular, and I'm loving that too. I like how short the needle portion is - my Denises are much longer, and I have a tendency of curling my right pinky around them far too hard, which results in a very stiff and painful pinky after just a few minutes of knitting, but the Clovers fit nicely into my palm, making it easy to keep my pinky relaxed for hours of knitting fun!
Well, I'm off to cook dinner. I'll take a few pictures and update this post with them later.