I have earned the favor of the Knitting Gods once more

True story.

I was playing in my stash on Saturday morning. My poor beautiful stash. Oh how I wish I could keep you lined up on the couch to admire throughout the day. To pet, and rearrange, and swatch whenever the mood strikes. But alas, 50 sticky fingers say you can not stay there. So in the dank, faintly-smoke-smelling, child-free basement you must reside. To add insult to injury you are stored in garbage bags, living in constant danger of being mistaken for actual garbage and carted to the curb on Mondays. I am so sorry. You deserve better than this.

Anyways, I was hiding for a moment from the busy day ahead, playing with my stash and thinking of how I need to find a better storage system. I kept pulling out skiens and thinking they would make a great _____, knowing I don't have time right now to knit anything new, and that if I ever got a spare moment I would forget my ideas. I pulled out a random ball of Cascade Fixation left over from the finished-knitting-months-ago-but-still-haven't-bothered-to-block Mon Petit Chou and wondered if I could squeeze a pair of socks from that ball. I took it upstairs so I wouldn't forget about it, and maybe I could look for a pattern later.

We left the house, and the day indeed got busy. A morning project took the entire day, and before we knew it we were returning to the house dirty, tired, hungry, nearly bedtime. We stopped to get the mail and inside was a surprise package just for me from my Cheap-Ass Secret Pal. Such a happy end to a long day. Either the Gods themselves are whispering in my Secret Pal's ears, or she is psychic. Inside my package was



A beautiful pen with matching note pad. And the cutest little post-it tags. Perfect for marking knitting patterns.



A bazillion patterns. I confess, I'm a pattern whore. I love patterns. All patterns, and there are some great ones in here.



A chenille washcloth (knitted by my Secret Pal?). You can not imagine how wonderful this cloth feels. I've heard of cotton washcloths, but they can't be half as nice as this one. My masterplan was to hide it before the children saw it, but I wasn't quick enough. It's been carried around and stroked by each child in turn. I must admit it is very nice to rub against your check. The last time I spotted it Meaty was wearing it as a hat, but it will be mine. Oh yes, I shall rescue it from the children, and it will be mine.
Lotion from my Favorite Store. I used to wear Bath and Body works lotion all the time. I'd buy a fragrance, and the body wash, and the body spray, and the scented glitter gel, and whatever else they decided to throw that scent into. A trip to that store was always pricey. Then I had one child, and I downsized to just the lotion. Then I had another child and I started buying lotion at Wal-Mart. Now I get my Bath and Body Works lotion in half-used tubes from my Sister. It's nice to have the whole package: lotion, body wash, and spray. It's even in my favorite scent. I used to love the lavender Freesia lotion. They stopped making it, then it was only avaliable on-line, then I stopped shopping there. This lotion is called Sheer Freesia, and it is every bit as good as that lavender lotion. It reminds me of the summer I lived in California, when I was young and spirited. The world lay before me and I had every hope that it would just bend to my will. I met The Greatest at the end of that summer. I was wearing a white tank top and freesia lotion.



A very cute sock pattern, and YARN. Cause you know a girl can never have enough sock yarn. In a side note I tried to buy this colorway when Knitpicks announced they were discontinuing this yarn, but they were all sold out. I was sad but consoled myself with 12 skiens of the hydrangea. I'm very very happy to have my hot little hands on two more skiens of star gazer lily.

And here's where my SP starts to really channel her psychic powers, it's not enough she sent lotion in my favorite scent that I haven't had in years, and yarn in the colorway that I was coveting. She also sent



Sweater Bags! To hold my yarn stash! Isn't that brilliant? Clear bags so I can see what's in them. Bags designed to hold sweaters so they'll keep out moths and other bad stuff.

But it doesn't stop there. She also sent



A pattern for "sockettes." Short socks that only take one skien of sock yarn for the entire pair. As you can see I immediately cast on with my left-over pink fixation. I departed from my usual two at one time on circular needles, since my circs are size 0 and the pattern called for 2s. But they are a quick knit and I'm already a quarter of the way through the second sock (I've knit more since I took the picture).

So many many thanks and much love to my Secret-possibly-psychic-bigger-than-a-bread-box-shoe-lovin' Pal.