Lesson Learned

A lesson learned indeed. I have common sense, and my common sense did tell me "Don't save your credit card!" "Don't be lazy, enter it manually!"...what am I ranting about? Well, I do alot of shipping for either my swap packages or my Traveling Scarves group, and so on, so I try to make my shipping tasks as convenient as possible. These past 2 weeks I had alot of packages to send out, and I was on USPS.com and because I had more than 3 packages to print shipping labels for at one time, I saved my credit card info so I wouldn't have to manually enter it for each shipping label. I thought "It's USPS, it should be ok". Well Friday evening while I was knitting at about 10 p.m., I got an email alert. I went to look at my checking account and found purchases at USPS.com for items I didn't charge, all equaling over $300! I immediately called my bank, canceled my card, and so on. I've been on a "cash only" basis for the past week since my account is all messed up, nothing I can do until the fraudulent items hard post to my account. Right now, it's just in a pending state. It's pending alright, pending my A**, I can't use my account, pay invoices I have from PayPal, nothing. It's a lesson learned, no saving the card anymore. Phew! Ok, I'm done, got that off my back.

Onto my therapy, yes 8-) my therapy.

I received my Christmas 2008 Swap package, and it is a wonderful Christmas package indeed!
My secret spoiler is HarlemQueen on Ravelry.



She knitted me a beautiful Santa dishcloth, a cute white bag cozy, filled with my FAVE Chai Tea, 1 skein of Blue Sky Alpaca 100% Organic cotton in Black, 1 Angel bell ornament (totally pretty), 4 of the most glamorous beads I've ever seen, and 1 Statue of Liberty ornament (I'm in love with this one, I've never been to New York, I dream of it, and this is just the sweetest closest thing to it), and 1 wrapped "don't open until Christmas" present (already nestled under my tree). Thank you HARLEMQUEEN!





Another great package came, and that is my "Peppermint Patty" kit from Woolgirl. I love the yarn colors and all the contents, especially the candy cane tape measure.

Contents are: 400yds. fingering weight of Miss Babs Peppermint Patty, a mini-skein of Miss Babs Red, 1 candy cane stitch marker, 1 candy cane tape measure, 1 peppermint chocolate cocoa, peppermint pattie chocolates, candy cane mints, Peppermint Patty lip balm & cream, and a knitting pouch.





Last, but not least, I received my Snowman Stitch Markers I won on the Nautical Knitter's blog, thank you!!!



In other news, I've been teaching myself how to knit faster without a cable needle doing cables, links for this given to me from a good friend Devotion2Knit. She gave me the link to Grumperina's instructions on this. It's been challenging and I'm fighting off that "bad taste" in my mouth for this project, I need to get this done. I've done a few repeats with the new method, and this is about as far as I've gone, doesn't seem like much difference from the other day, but it is moving along.



Well now I gotta go and continue knitting this beanie, wish me luck!

Everything at once

Over the weekend we went to my little cousin's 7th bday party, Alyssa. She is so cute and the sweetest girl. Her parents surprised her and had her birthday party at Boomer's in Modesto, CA. They have everything there, from go karts, to water boats, mini-golf, rock climbing, batting cages, lazer tag, arcade games, you name it.

The kids had such a great time, and really enjoyed the rock climbing. My son climbed the rock wall over 4 times and did each turn in record time. We said he looked like Spiderman up there, he navigated that wall like it was nothing.



My daughter tried too, but had a wee bit harder of a time.



It was such a great time, but very tiring. The long 2 hour drive to the party gave me plenty of time to finish knitting my Holiday Stocking. I made one for my Death By Socks Christmas Stocking Swap Pal, Yarnwhisperer. I have to apologize to her, I had over a month to get this done, but fell behind on so many projects and ended up casting on this past Friday 11/21/08.

I didn't know what to do for a stocking, so I decided to wing it and let the project happen as I knitted it.

I started off with a provisional chain cast on and knitted in red for about 9 inches, then turned the heel, onto the toe, which was about 2 1/2 inches. I used a plain stockinette because I felt it would look nice.

I then swiss stitched in a snowflake design, plus Yarnwhisperer's initials "A T". After closing up the toe, I removed my crochet chain and picked up the live stitches, then with white yarn, knitted for 2 rows, then reversed knitted the opposite direction to make the right side the wrong side. I was pretty skeptical at first, but it worked out better than I thought. The 2 knitted right side rows allowed the reverse knitted (purls on right side) to puff out, so it really looks like a stocking.

For the yarn, I used Vanna White's Red Yarn, very soft, and economical, and this yarn from Stacy Charles that is white with laced tinsel sparklins through it. I thought it would be perfect and it is!

For added flair, I weaved in some red beads for the snowflake. I'll put together the notes from my pattern and share for free again! I plan on making another one, but for my daughter, I might switch up the design though.



That's my Bear in the picture, he had to share the spotlight.



Can you see those beads? I love how they turned out.

Besides my stocking gift, I also got a few gifts of my own, a lovely Starbucks & Yarn Package came from Shoegirl on Ravelry.



I got some really pretty Lorna Laces sock yarn, 217yds!, a cute mug cozy, in my fave colors, neutrals, a Starbucks gift card, Giada's Tuscan Spice from Crate & Barrel (I love this!), Giada's little menu, and some hand cream (which I love cause I'm always washing my hands).
Thank you Shoegirl!

Another goodie came Saturday, it is "Autumn Haze" from Socks that Rock 2008. This is the final installment and I'm in love with it. My absolute #1 fave of the entire 2008 club. I need more of this colorway, so I can make something absolutly pretty with it.







Aren't those colors beautiful!

Ok one more goodie for yah, today I received the latest Madeline Tosh Society shipment, "Tourmaline", and is to die for! It's 1000 yards of luscious silky soft Tuscan silk! This is definitely an early Christmas present for me.





Oh, before I leave yah, if you want to enter a fun contest, please check out the Nautical Knitter's blog, she is giving away the cutest Snowman stitch markers!

I'll post again before Turkey Day!