The Yarn Fairy Giveth, But Let Him Try To Take It Away

Well.

The Yarn Fairy was late yesterday. Not an acceptable situation. I expect him around noon, and if he's not here, then I know that Art the Yarn Fairy (no, I haven't told him what I call him) is on vacation and a replacement (or Yarn Fairy In Training aka YFIT) is here. YFIT showed up around 1 p.m. and didn't ring the bell. Oh no, I thought. No packages. Usually ATYF is so loaded down with stuff that he rings the bell with his knee, then gently stacks the boxes in my arms, slipping the "important" mail in between the boxes so I don't lose it (like I give a rat's ass about, oh, the water bill - I do need electricity so I can knit under my high-powered lamp). So I hear him rustling around, and since Hubster was up (sigh), I asked him to bring in the booty... uh... mail. Fortunately for me, there were only four boxes this time, as opposed to my usual stack that could serve as a support pillar for the porch. He brings everything in, sets them down on the chair awaiting my attention, and then goes back to work.

I have trained myself to not instantly rip into the packages, preferring instead to wait for a while so my appetite is whetted. After all, if I rip into them right away, what am I going to do all day? Since I had an appointment at 6:00 p.m., I decided to try and take a nap. I managed to get in an hour's worth of sleep, got up at 4:00 p.m., and promptly sat down to see what goodies had arrived.

The first thing I noticed was that there were two from Woolgirl! Oh yes! I had been expecting something from her that I knew was being mailed a couple of days ago. Since she's just in Oregon, mail gets here pretty fast on the Pony Express. I carefully chose which of the two boxes to open (after I shook them, of course), and found out immediately that I had opened the wrong one - the one that I had been waiting for and wanted to prolong the excitement on. So I set it aside before I pulled everything out and opened the other one. Yarn. Gorgeous yarn. Yarn that is going to be used for my pal's Monkey Socks (I know you're reading this, oh pal 'o mine - waves~~~!), as well as the yarn I'm going to send her to make the pattern she chose. No, I didn't take a picture of it. I'm not giving a thing away. But then I opened up the anticipated box and found that it was even better than I had thought:







That ultra-cool Yarngirl bag came because I'm part of the Wooly Woolgirl Club (having placed more than seven orders made me a member). The bag was filled with delightful goodies, which I am not going to divulge because I don't want to spoil the surprise for other Wooly members, but suffice it to say that it's really good swag. I spent a half-hour ogling everything in the bag and absolutely marveling at one of the items she sent. Thank you so much, Jen!!! (~~~~~~waves xoxo)

This next picture is of the promised shirt. There was one on Etsy that was in full color and a little different than this one - about two months ago. I wrote the shop owner and asked if they had a certain size in a boy cut (those little girly things do NOT hold in the 44E's - they smoosh them down and make me look like I've got two raccoons wrestling to get out of a sack under there), and after some time, she wrote back and told me that an order was forthcoming. She told me that she would write to let me know when they arrived. I waited a long time and wrote her again, whereupon she told me they were there but hadn't been photographed. That was at least a month ago. Hmm... maybe the whole episode has taken three months. No matter. I've written it off, even though I really, really wanted that shirt. Clownbitch. Anyway, once again, courtesy of Lime & Violet's Daily Chum, I give you the Pirate Yarn Shirt from the good folks at Jinx.







Of course, there was also yarn. Only four skeins today (at least, four skeins that I could photograph (snicker)), but they're gorgeous, plump strands of yarny goodness. I present to you - The Yarn.







The yarn is all by Strings and Yarn, who can be found at:

http://www.stringsandyarn.etsy.com


She includes a gorgeous stitch marker with each skein (these are particularly lovely). Please ignore the artistry in arranging - Hubster was good enough to take the pictures for me today since I was shaking (sleep deprivation, most likely), and he was going for a pleasing composition rather than showing off each individual skein. No matter. The names of these are Piano Concerto No. 2 - Rachmaninoff; Hebrides Overture - Mendelssohn; Morning Mood - Greig; and La Mer - Debussy. I believe the lady who makes these also plays (or is simply a classical music aficionado, but I get the feeling she's a violinist), so naming the colorways after a piece of music is particularly inspired. I think she translates the feeling she gets from the music into what colors she envisions them to be.

There. I've done my good deed for the day and given three plugs.

The rest of the evening was sort of a blur. We had dinner at Tony Roma's (St. Louis-style Carolina Honeys ribs), went to Michaels (I hate that store, but they had some stuff I needed), and came home, whereupon I grabbed my socks, began knitting, and just as promptly fell asleep. The rest of the night continued on in a similar fashion. We put on a Dragnet DVD (part of a boxed set of the really old ones), and both of us fell asleep. Then I put on my TIVO'ed stuff, watched People's Court four times (to catch the parts I missed while I dozed), and now here I am, late on the blog but at least doing it.

Sometime during the evening's partying, it happened. And at a really shitty place.

I had the last three stitches of the row fall off the needle.

I looked at them with bleary eyes, said some rather appropriate words, and carefully slid the stitches back on the needle. It's a shitty place because with socks knitted in this manner, the last stitch is always a bit wonky. Because I was still out of it, I only slid HALF of the last stitch on the needle. Out came the trusty crochet hook, snagging the rest of the recalcitrant yarn and putting it in its place. When I went to knit them, I found out that I had put them all on backwards. No matter. It was a simple matter to just turn them around. I knit another row and looked at them, and everything looks okay. The stitch count is right, so I'm assuming that all is well. I'll just stick that side on the bottom so nobody sees it, even though there's not a damn thing wrong with it.

Today I start knitting the Monkey Socks. DPN's. Gack. I haven't used those in ages. But use them I must, so I will. It's an adventure. If I get good and pissed, I'll rewrite the pattern for use on two circs. But I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

For the time being, I'm going to read some blogs, have a cuppa, and go back to knitting my socks (which have been patiently waiting for me while I finished the ponchos - which I have to block today).

And I'll wait for the Yarn Fairy to cometh ...