Sue, my Special Swap partner for February, and I decided to mail our boxes on the same day and race to see which one got there first. We both mailed them Thursday and I unthinkingly sent mine Priority (it did not occur to me that this might be cheating) and she sent hers First Class. In a bizarre Twist Of Fate, they both arrived on Saturday. Which does make me wonder what exactly I am paying for when I ship Priority. I choose to think of it as a Yarn Miracle. Look at all this great stuff!

Some candy not pictured due to impatience.

The theme was Hearts and Roses and Sue sent some really fun things: the sweetest heart plate and stationary, a bunch of candy (can’t have a swap without chocolate – it’s the law), a darling red felted bowl (which isn’t showing up too well in the picture – it’s hidden by candy) AND Instant Gratification Sock Yarn in Chocolate Covered Kisses. I LOVE this colorway and I was just saying the other day that I needed another pair of socks with pink in them! Thank you so much, Sue! Incidentally, you may not be able to reach Sue of comment, they were expecting a foot of snow last night! Which makes me feel kind of bad because today is beautiful and I have the windows open.

My blue sweater vest is joined at the shoulders:

Now for the neck and arm bands.

And William Henry is as charming as ever in spite of his criminal tendencies (there is another sweet/disturbing picture of the cats in the sideblog).

What kind of pie?

Oh, remember when The Col. needed a new logic board? When they replaced that the antenna was damaged and the CD drive was misaligned (the CDs no longer exit the drive but rather slam into the side and then reload themselves). We are taking it back on Monday so I might be out of the loop for a bit.

It’s National Pancake Day!

Get a free short stack at any iHop until 10pm tonight! All they ask is that you consider donating to the Children’s Miracle Network (kiosks in-store).

When I went to get the pancake picture out of Mr. Pink, I discovered a whole mess of pictures that I had forgotten about. For example, I never showed you this:

That’s the start of the second GBS – just to give you a time frame.

Katie made it for me! I got her to do one for my Mom too – it’s in red but the insides match. Isn’t the flower the cutest thing? Take a peek at her Etsy shop – she makes all kinds of bags and needle cases and fun things like that. It is the perfect size for a sock bag (holds a STR yarncake) and yet, looks cute like a purse. Makes me a happy girl.

This one is from this weekend:

Inside Needle Nook.

We were on the way to pick up Michael’s little sister (who turned 18 on the 15th – we were there for her birthday party) and I looked over and saw the Needle Nook sign. Michael is very tolerant of this kind of thing and let me out of the car. It was one of the best yarn shop experiences I’ve had in ages, the clerk recognized the sweater I had on from an Interweave (M was deeply impressed by this) and nobody tried to sell me novelty yarn. I’m not going to show you what I bought because some of it was for my Special Swap Pal (don’t y’all panic, it’s not a secret swap) and I want to preserve the mystery.

I also ran in Nease’s Needlework (I’ve been there before) to pick up One More Thing so there was a nice amount of yarn in my weekend.

The front of the blue vest is just about finished – I’ll have a picture for you next time. My next order of business is to pick a Bloomin’ Feet yarn and pattern. I think I’ve figured out the yarn and color, so it’s really just the pattern that needs thinking about.

I completely forgot – Typepad blogs have been giving me some serious trouble lately and not letting my comments go through like they should. For those of you that this has affected: “That is such a beautiful sock/sweater/scarf that you made! Was it hard to do? What a luscious yarn.” heh

And the crowd goes wild!

He ASKED for two different colored toes. heeheehee

If you’ll excuse me, I have a mountain of laundry to fold.