I have just been letting my blog languish here. Bad blogger!

Well, I’ll just catch up a little right now, and then stop with my lazy self and start updating more regularly.
First of all, check out all the loot my secret pal sent me:

There was lots of great stuff in the box, each item wrapped in tissue paper. It was as fun as Christmas morning, unwrapping each little treat. My favorite thing was the skein of Cherry Hill Sock yarn (and size 2 dpns!). As you can see, I started immediately on a sock. I was a little scared, since my last pair of socks were made with Jaeger Baby Merino and size 6 needles, but so far so good, I’m not having too much trouble with the tiny needles. Oh, and the cats love the little knitted mouse!

I also took a little road trip with the girls to see Cary play in Los Angeles. We went all the way up there on a school night! That’s right, we’re wild and crazy! I didn’t get home until 1:30. I’m so not 25 anymore. It was one of the best shows I’ve seen, though, so it was worth it. Some pictures of the fun:

I gave him the fish hat. It looks pretty good on his goofy head.

I watched Nature the other night. This weeks episode: Puppies! Bear liked it too (click for the large version).

Hi, I’m back and I’m still alive. I took a little summer vacation from my blog. Only it wasn’t really a vacation, I was way too busy and wasn’t really getting a lot of knitting done, or anything else creative, for that matter. So what have I been doing on my summer vacation? A few things, but first I have to say this:

THANK YOU SECRET PAL! I hope you got my email, because for some reason my email isn’t working and I only just realized this a few days ago, and haven’t had time to figure out what the problem is. But I will eventually, and if anyone needs to reach me in the meantime, please use the comments, and I’ll check them every day!

Well, I got a little package from my secret pal a couple weeks ago, and here’s what was in it:

First of all, I bought a tin of that Blue Sky Alpaca’s hand balm earlier this year, and I love it so much, but I had taken to hoarding it, because my LYS didn’t have any more and I was going to be sad when it was gone, but now I have a whole new tin! Perfect! And I have been wanting something cute and fun for the enormous dashboard on my cute and fun car, and she goes and sends me a little sheep bobble head! I stuck it there with a little museum wax, and now when the traffic has me down I have a little sheep to make me smile (along with that gigantic pink peony that you see a bit of in the corner of the picture).

I did do a tiny bit of knitting. I made a hat:

I will probably be giving it to someone, but I won’t name any names, because I don’t want anyone to be jealous. It’s from the Mission Falls Just Kidding book, and I used 1824 wool. The patterns are all for kids, but this is the third hat I’ve made and they all seem a little large for kids. I might make another one for myself, but in red or another bright, fun color. You can also see from this picture that I got my hair cut last week. It’s a cute haircut, and I like it a lot.

I also finished my other sock, but I didn’t take a picture because it looks just like the one below.

I also took Mr. Lucy to a concert:

That’s right, I was hanging out with the rednecks and cowboys at the Toby Keith Throw Down Tour, which is not something I would normally do, but it was a lot of fun. Rednecks really know how to party. Mr. Lucy has a crush on Terri Clark, who was the opening act. He’s taken me to lots of concerts that I wanted to go to, so it was his turn, for a change. I felt a little silly in the parking lot after the show in my VW Beetle, surrounded by Big Ford Trucks.

That’s right, I made myself a sock! I used Wendy’s Generic Toe-up Sock pattern, which walks you through the whole process step-by-step and makes it easy to make socks that fit perfectly (very important for my big ol’ size 11’s).

I know summer is in full swing. How, you may ask? It’s sandel-tan time. Do you like my striped feet?

Okay, on to sock number two!

So I’m just going to call this ‘Novelty Yarn’ and be happy about it:

It’s a bit thick and thin. I’d like to make something from it, but I’m not quite sure what. What have others made from hand spun yarn? Any suggestions would be welcome. I want to use it, since I’m going to all this trouble, but I don’t think there will be a whole lot, so I need to come up with a small but useful project.

In the FO department I have these:

My first attempt at booties. I like them, although I think the next time I will use wool yarn-these are Debbie Bliss Cotton Angora and the fabric is just a bit stiffer than I was expecting.

Hi to all the visitors coming from Kerstin’s site. I hope you’ll come back again some time!

Here’s Sally:

I’m hoping she’ll arrive at her destination safely today.

I forgot to take a picture of my spindle and yarn, but maybe it’s better that I wait until I get a little more practice. Spinning is so simple, yet so difficult. I think it’s going to take lots of practice to be able to spin the yarn exactly the weight and texture I want. It’s so fun though, even if my yarn is a bit thick and thin. This link is for my future reference.

I’ve started working on my Salt Peanuts sweater again, I’m almost done with the sleeve I started so many weeks ago, and I think I’ll be concentrating on it most of the time from now on. I have a couple little projects going on-my first attempt at socks, and a baby sweater for the new niece, but there’s no rush on either of those. It was too hot to knit much when the air conditioning was out, but as of yesterday afternoon we have cool air once again!

And today’s gratuitous cute pet picture is Gigi:

I was sitting and knitting in my usual chair while watching TV last night, and looked over, and there she was, just sitting like that.