All those swaps update

I got my Dog Day's package in the mail from Sunny in Alaska the other day. She sent an awesome dishcloth, a pattern that I am excited to try with the bamboo yarn she sent, as well as Alaskan Snow soap, and other goodies. I will have a picture of all of it soon. (Hubband and DTY get home tonight or tomorrow, as does the camera, if DTE's wont cooperate for me today.)



Megan has received her Dog Day's box from me and has posted about it. I will give you a picture of the dishcloths by themselves. See, those Ball Bands just suck you right in. Just wait until you all see what I am doing with them next!




Mary received her HSKS2 and you can see all the goodies. Here is a picture of just the bag I sent. I used the Picket Fence" sock pattern that I sent her for the silver part of the bag, but kind of made the actual bag design up as I went along. I lined the whole thing with some silver lame I had left over from something for one of the kids from some time back.


Kathleen got her notions bag, but since she doesn't have a blog, she has asked me to post these for you all to see what else I sent besides the bag you have already gotten to look at.










There is a puzzle for her son, some biscotti and recipe for more, and postcards and a couple of magnets from where I live. The significance of the corn cob "thing" is that it is a water tower for the Seneca/Libby's vegetable canning facility here in town. It is a famous local landmark.

What do I take with me today is the question

I have determined that I really can't wait until Monday to do laundry. The drawers are getting empty and the basket is overflowing (and that is just one of them). Plus if I wait until then, it will take me forever to get caught up. I would probably just be almost there when the two plus weeks x 2 of camping/backpacking stuff would show up. The dishes will be bad enough, though they always promise to do those. There will actually be an extra person arriving for two weeks just before Hubband and DTY get home. We get to have Mr. A come visit again! He is my "Baby Brother's" oldest son. (Please note that that my baby brother is two and a half years older than I am, but he is the baby of my brothers.) Any who, Mr. A is our annual summer visitor for a couple of weeks. The first year he came, I flew to CA to get him, and Baby Bro flew out here to retrieve him. Since then he has gotten to fly on "unaccompanied minor" status. We are all really excited to have him come visit, BTW. I digress from my less than exciting day however. Back to the laundry issue. I have to do laundry, so I have to go to the Laundry Mat. So that brings me to the question of what should I take with me to do while I wait for stuff to do its "get clean and dry thing"? Do I take Shiny, do I take a book, or do I take knitting? I am not currently reading anything that I am finding super engaging, but I have stuff that I am happy to keep reading. Well one of the books I haven't really gotten into yet and I stared it at two in the morning, so I shouldn't rush to anything about it yet. The other book I have been reading is something that I can easily put down (hence why I started a new novel while in the midst of a smallish one). Do I take knitting that is easy to carry along? Do I check to see if I have easy knitting that I can do while reading in case I can't make up my mind? Oh, the dilemma. I could spend more time wandering around figuring out what to take with me than I actually spend at the laundry mat. I just wish I had the option of playing pool while I did the laundry. (From the one review, I am guessing the owner has changed sometime in the last ten or twelve years. This place is located on a bus line/walking distance from the University area, so it has done well in the past as a business. I just haven't been there in at least one lifetime.)
On a more exciting note, I get to go to the post office today. I have books to send off to BB, Mr. A and Miss D (Baby Brother's wife). They are getting the first two books in a series that is every bit as good, if not better than the book the three of them will be fighting over this weekend. And a movie is coming out of the first one in December. I can't tell you what they are until they have the box in hand. I just hope it helps the problem of three people trying to all read the same book at the same time. Unless someone there just has the sense to read it out loud to everyone. They could take turns reading out loud after all. Because that (the one that comes out tomorrow) is not the book I have planned for reading to Mr. A this summer. I am also mailing off my Dog Days Dishcloth Swap box and my HSKS2 box. That one is a lot closer to the wire than I wanted, but the yarn I had ordered took longer to get to me than I had expected. Oh, well, all is good and off it goes today.

I am going to leave you all with these YouTube links DTE gave me. Apologies to all you avid Star Wars fans out there (and I know there is at least one:) ), but I hope it makes you laugh as much as I did. The second link is an apology to all you Queen fans, but I hope you also get a chuckle out of it. I will let everyone know, that I am a Queen and Star Wars Fan (perhaps not of the magnitude of Bubblesknits but we can't all be like that.) I guess I can listen to Shiny Queen while I read while knitting at the Mat.
(As an aside to some folks in my family who are still learning these things, click on the grey words and it should send you to the link referenced.)

The wonderful things Sandy sent for HSKS2

I got my Hogwarts Sock Kit Swap 2 from Sandy on Tuesday. There is a wonderful blue and silver felted bag, some Knitty patterns, chocolates, a second zipper bag, a candle, an owl charm,needles, TWO sets of stitch markers, and two skeins of super wash Merino dyed special for me by Sandy! I like how she used both the blue/silver and the blue/bronze options for the colors. One of the stitch markers is missing because DTE wanted to put it on her cell phone. Now, since I am guessing that most of the folks reading this don't actually know her, you don't realize how funny this is. She is not the type to put things on stuff, or decorate her cell phone. Her key ring has exactly one key on it, the one to the car she drives. When she uses my car, she takes just the key off, no door opening fobs for her. She isn't that crazy about cell phones either; as in before she left for college I don't think she had ever used more than TEN minutes in one month. When DTY started driving, DTE tried to give her phone away to her little sister; "It isn't my phone, it belongs to the car!" Being away at school has changed some of that, but I have noticed she hasn't used it much all summer while she has been home. Oh, when her phone broke in April and she needed a new one, she was pretty upset that she was going to have to have one with a camera. "Phones aren't cameras! Cameras aren't phones! Can't I just have a basic phone that makes calls and doesn't do a bunch of extra stuff?" I think the answer wound up being no, they don't really seem to come that way much any more. I guess she is kind of like her mom, I still have the same phone I started with when we got the family plan about five years ago.

Hogwarts SKS 2 answers

1. What Hogwarts house have you been sorted into? Ravenclaw

2. List your favorite double-point needle brands, including size and length. Or would you prefer circulars? I have knit socks all on DP's, except for one pair currently on circulars (of course, they got lost for a little over a year, so I have to remember how to do it that way... If I finish them now,do they count for SoS?) But, as for the DP's:
a.Brittany Birch 2 or 3 (5inch)
b.Clover Bamboo
c.Chrystal Palace

3. Would you like to try a new brand needle? If so, which brand? Size? Length? Sure, I am always up for trying new stuff in knitting (thus the unfinished and /or lost projects around. So easily distracted by something new/different...)

4. If you are a RAVENCLAW, do you prefer the colors in the film or the book? Do you have a strong preference? No particular preference.

5. Do you have any allergies? Smoke and strong perfume smells.

I'm in, and we're off

I got into the Hogwarts Sock Kit Swap 2 by the skin of my teeth, and I am very excited that I made it! Hubband and I are off to The Twin Cities until tomorrow to celebrate our anniversary. (It was yesterday, but today is Friday, the 22nd, and it is our 22nd one, so it works for us. Who else matters in these things anyway?)
I just have to say regarding my post about naming thing, either only one person reads my blog (and I know that person already knows all the answers to my hints), or folks don't make comments when they do read it. Oh well, maybe Hogwarts traffic will generate curiosity about name relationships.
Now I am off to have fun!