when I went there the other day (or was it yesterday?) was stitch markers. I thought I’d seen some there earlier, but nope. And Forecast is absolutely impossible to knit without stitch markers, at least for someone as inattentive as yours truly. So I had to make some. By then it was 9 p.m. so I had to make do with what I happened to have at home, which was… some kind of extremely thin elastic thread for making jewelry, and tiny pink beads.

The result was, fortunately, satisfactory. Here’s one of my pink darlings in action:

Pretty okay, isn’t it?

(On a totally different note, but still re: the yarn store — they’ve updated their webpage, which would be great if it weren’t for the fact that it absolutely doesn not work with Firefox. Seriously, who uses IE these days?)

I’ve started on Forecast from Knitty’s Winter 2005 issue. I found some lovely dark blue yarn at a yarn sale yesterday (yarn galore coming up soon, promise) and have now swatched, bought new circulars, cast on, and managed knitting about 1/4″ of the collar last night.

More on this can be found at the KAL I joined for the purpose of actually finishing this project before my hair turns gray. (My first entry here.)

As some of you know, we’ve recently moved to a new apartment. It is slightly smaller than the old one, but has several advantages nonetheless, one of them being that the mail is delivered considerably earlier. At our old place, we would get it anytime from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Now, we usually get it at 10 or 11 a.m.

However, whereas our old mailman would usually bring us even the larger letters/packages and ring the bell for us to come and get them, the new one just leaves a notice for us to pick them up at the local GAS STATION. (Yes, we do have a weird postal system here. There are hardly any post offices anymore.)

Anyway… as I mentioned in my last post, I got one of those notices on Wednesday. I had completely forgotten that my Pal had sent off a package recently, so I was convinced it would be some books I ordered last weekend. It wasn’t.

When I got home, I tried to open the package. I say ‘tried,’ because there was so much tape around the place where I assumed the opening was. Masses of tape. And, of course, the Customs Declaration from which my boyfriend read me the contents before I’d even started with the tape. Argh.

(I know I’m not getting anywhere with this post yet, but have patience!)

I got most of the tape off, not wanting to cut into the envelope for fear of destroying some of its precious content. Here’s what was waiting for me inside (and probably screaming out my name in terror during the horrible PAR AVION ride):

Tissue paper. Lots of tissue paper.

Yarn! Five balls Peruvian Collection Baby Silk in a light green color called (very appropriately) “Peridot”.

More yarn! Two balls Knitpicks Alpaca Cloud in the loveliest of warm browns (”Autumn”). But that wasn’t it:

Two knitting books from 1951 and 1952 (I was practically jumping on the couch when I found these), a tapestry needle set (which I sorely needed), and finally, a 4.5mm circular needle (bamboo!) which I’ve been using to swatch for Forecast. Which is why it isn’t pictured.

I’m so happy! Secret Pal, you made my day. And thank you so much for winding the laceweight into balls! Winding thicker yarn by hand is no problem, but laceweight can be a real pain. And I refuse to spend money on a yarn winder right now.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Pal!