Knit the latest new gadget

I’m sure this cost a lot less than $599 and it’s cute too!

Best.SecretPal.Ever.

My last SP10 package was waiting for me when we returned home from a quickie 4th of July trip today. And boy is it a doozey!! Let me walk you through it. There’s a ton of stuff here so try to keep up.

This is the big lovely box that everything was packed in.

This is the view when I opened the box. It’s Christmas in July!

And here are the goodies! TA-DAH!!!
Pretty long & skinny scarf - outside of the box made from various types of yarn
Colorful note cards
Starbucks cup and coffee card
Stitch markers
Candle & Candle simmering liquid in Gardenia fragrance
Cottonease yarn –woohoo!
Multi-color cotton and shiney yarn - smells great!
Harry & David Moose Munch
Shawl Pin
Coffee Break hanging door pillow
Fragrance Sachet in Gardenia
Lion washcloth - soooo cute!
Eye mask - soft and relaxing
Personalized “knitted for you by Sandra” tags

Whew!!! I am probably forgetting something, so I’ll do a recap later. Anyhoo, it was the nicest and biggest package that I ever had in any type of swap.
Thank you so much SecretPal!

OK, I know that I haven’t posted here in years. But I am trying this new quickie mini-blog thingy. It’s not strictly knitting though.

I am working on a lightweight lacy scarf. Still, I’m not so sure that I can wear a scarf during the summer. I am making it for someone else.

Top 5 Things You Should Not Do While Knitting

1. Watch a scary movie. So you know the part the movie where the young crazy brave girl/boy climbs the stairs slowly to see what that scary noise is coming from the upstairs bedroom? And you watch until they reach the door to the room, put their hand on the door knob and slowly turn it to open the door—right then your hands fly up to cover your eyes and ouch! You poke out an eye with your needles. Now you’re knitting with a patch over one eye—pirate knitting!

 

2. Eat stickies. My mom used to make these when I was kid, circa 1975. Back then I could handle the sugar intake, now I would keel over instantly if I ate one-sixteenth of one today. You must eat these gooey treats with your fingers and you can’t just wipe your hands on a napkin and go back to knitting. Your fingers will stick to your yarn, your pattern and your needles.

 

3. Have a logical and reasonable conversation with your teenager (or Labrador retriever for that matter). How many times have you told your son/daughter that they cannot let the dog in the house unless she (the teen) watches her (the dog) to make sure that she (the dog) doesn’t go into the bathroom for a drink of water, bowl cleaner, whatever. You call out to the dog and the teenager to find out where they are and no one answers. You ask her (the teenager) if she is watching the dog. No one answers. You drop your knitting in the middle of a SSK YO P16 to go find out where she is (the dog). You come back to your knitting after asking why she (the teenager) is not watching the dog, and you can’t remember if you YO’d once or twice or purled anything at all.

 

4. Take a phone survey. You want to do your civic duty and participate in the latest enviro-political-nuclear-global warming survey being done by some obscure
Washington think tank (how did they get your phone number anyways?). But if you are counting and decreasing stitches on row 29, 32 and 45 and answering the poll taker’s questions with a number between 1 to 5 with 5 being you agree totally, 3 you have no opinion,  and 1 you could care less; one of your sweater sleeves will be 15 rows too short and 30 stitches too tight. Just tell everyone it’s a new design feature.

 

5. Have a cocktail. OK, maybe just one. But please, garter stitch only. Friends don’t let friends Kitchener stitch after a few too many.

 

This post was inspired by the Top 5 Group Writing Project.

Via Black Threads comes the news of an invention of an Apparatus for Holding Yarn Skeins. The patent was granted back in 1896! Julia Terry Hammonds writes in her patent that “the object of my invention is to provide a cheap and simple means for winding yarn silks, zephyrs and other such materials…”