In which she gets excited about a box of knitting stuff

Whoop!

In the spirit of the Great Christmas Knitting Marathon that has begun for me, I ordered myself some green & red yarns, a felting tool, a new book, and some sock blockers - all from Knit Picks. (as far as the yarn goes, I would have just gotten Cascade from my LYS, but I needed like $3 more in order to qualify for free shipping, so I thought, what the hey-doodle.)

And it arrived yesterday!! Nothing makes me happier than a box full of knitty goods, let me tell you.

(that's a lie, I can think of a few other things that make me happier, but this is right up there in the top 10)

And a true Christmas Miracle occured!! The Purple Socks of Death, which had been dead to me for weeks, if not months, have been revived! The sock blockers arrived and performed sock CPR on them and brought them back. I did the heel flap AND turned the heel last night (on sock #2). I still don't think I have enough yarn to finished the sock, but I was just so darn excited about my new blockers, that I didn't even care.

A note to all my friends and family: these socks were made with pure, unfiltered, 100% grade A hatred. Well, the first one wasn't 100%. Maybe more like 36%. But calcetine numero dos....nothing but hate for it. So, what I'm trying to say is, come Christmas, if you open up a gift from me and find these lovely dusty purple acrylic socks in your package....well....you know how I feel about you. I'm just sayin' is all. But look how pretty it looks on the blocker!!

I've also been doing good keeping up with my goal of One Knitted Christmas Gift Per Week. This is week two, and the first week I managed to get TWO gifts done, so I am working on a new little sumpin' for me. What? I'm allowed to do that. I am ahead of the game. Anyway I obviously can't display the finished gifts here, but I will show you what I'm making for myself.

This is the Sunday Market Shawl, made with my yummy Lang brand Silk/Merino blend. I found something to make with it! And I think I have enough for 2, so it looks like someone is getting one of these for Christmas, assuming I like the way it turns out. It's a very simple pattern, if not a bit boring, just row after row of stockinette. But the cool part is that on the very first row, you do a bunch of yarn overs, and then on the very last row, you drop all those stitches, and it creates all these little cool ladders in your piece. Or so I've been told, and have seen by the pictures. I can't wait to see that happen with my piece.

Don't worry, though. I can still whip out another Christmas gift this week and keep on track. A pair of slippers perhaps, or a 3,486,923rd Garter Stitch scarf, or maybe I can even count the PSoD as a Christmas gift. Sorry ahead of time to whoever gets those. You are on the naughty list.