So, all I got for my birthday was cash. Over the past week I converted it into actual goods in an orgy of materialism.


Merino cashmere sock yarn from The Knittery in Orange Blossoms.



The same yarn in Indigo on its way to being a spiral boot sock.



Hand dyed merino roving from Ewe Give Me The Knits in Neptune's Nemesis. I've already spun up a quarter of this. It's so easy to handle, and the colours have kept me entertained for hours. Literally hours.


And o-m-g, we have hand dyed Optim in Babycakes (also from EGMTK)! It's so shiny and soft. I'm afraid of messing it up. I think I'll wait until I get my new spindle, then aim for some laceweight.

Yeah, as part of my spree I ordered a spindle from the Spindlemaker. They're made to order, so it should take a while to arrive. John and Juleen helped me choose a spindle since I have nfi.

I also bought some Angels on Bare Skin from Lush. Slightly noticeable improvement so far. I'll see how it is in a few weeks.

At the end of last month, I ordered some dyed-to-order sock yarn with the intention that it'd arrive around my birthday. It was posted a couple of weeks ago, but no sign of it yet. I'm convinced it's gone missing, since it should NOT take 18+ days for something to travel 15 kms.

I think that's all, unless there's something I've bought but forgotten about.

Edit: Also got membership for the Zen String sock club, and some sock needles. I don't know how I forgot those.

FO: Capone

Pattern: Capone from Rowan 38
Yarn: Twilleys Freedom Spirit in #502 Fire, 1.5 balls.
Mods: Didn't sew ribbon around the brim.

This was really easy and fun. At first it seemed ridiculously huge (I could pull it all the way over my head), and I doubted it would felt enough.

The Twilleys felted like a dream. Much much better than Noro. I did it at 3 a.m. in the bathroom sink, with medium-hot water and a bit of soap. It took about half an hour until I was completely happy with the shrinking. It's a bit redder in real life, but the photos show the subtle striping fairly well.

I didn't join the edges evenly, but the felting obliterated the dodginess. Muahaha. I didn't weave any ends in either, and they turned into short hard nubs that got snipped off without any problems.

I'm not sure that the style of this hat suits me. In fact, I don't think I'm a hat person at all. I knew this before I started, but I really wanted a quick project to play with. I think I'll keep it on the dog until I decide what to do with it.

Boxed by Rowen/Maiziemama

Mum took the camera so I used my phone. Slightly blurry; it's NOT your eyes.

This arrived at Chris' house last month, and I got it from him last week but didn't put photos up =/


Made by Rowen from handspun (she spun it herself, I think). I love the colours.



Squee, pink yarn! Claudia's Handpaints in Pink Posey. I can't wait to use this. I've never tried Claudia's before.


Pu'er tea. Haven't tried this before either. This is the sort of thing I'd expect customs to take, but they didn't! Maybe because it was at the bottom...?

We were really impressed by the way Rowen managed to fit everything in the box! We couldn't manage to put it all back the right way. It had been opened by customs and they crammed some pamphlets inside, but it seems that they didn't take anything out.

Also in the box, but not pictured here, were:

Knit Klips (which are awesome, and a lot faster than basting)

Clover Chibi needles (I like how there are different eye sizes in the one tube)

Wasabi peas (Chris ate most of these. Some of them were really HOT. They made him tear up a little)

Various candy bars (which I ate without help from anyone).

Cookie A's Gothic Spire

Here's the non-blurry but slightly dark (it was night) photo that Chris sent me, when I was in England:



For anyone who wants to know what happened on the rest of my trip, we went to the country. It was cold and boring and I finished HP7 in 6 hours. We stopped over at Korea on the way back, and Mum had a massive row with people at the airport. We would have totally been on Border Security if it had happened here.