Clearly my pal is the best!

I have the best Sockret Pal out of the whole bunch. Clearly. Look at these amazing socks that arrived in the mail today! I absolutely love them. Included in the box was a “read me first” note. (And I promise, I did read the note first, before opening the socks. But it took iron will to do that.) When this swap first started, my pal emailed me to let me know that she had found a yarn that I didn’t carry, to knit my socks out of. Well I just thought that was so nice of her. Of course I love every single yarn we have here at The Loopy Ewe and would’ve been delighted with any of them, but my pal wanted me to have something different. So she contacted a swapping pal in England and arranged for this cool yarn to be sent over for my socks. Imagine how she felt, then, when she read a few weeks later that we’d be getting Wollmeise in at The Loopy Ewe. (Yes – my new socks are Wollmeise. Did I luck out, or what?) Of course I mentioned in my blog that I was knitting some socks out of one of the colorways, and had taken another colorway out for my stash. I failed to mention which colorways. So my poor pal stopped working on my socks the whole time I was on vacation, waiting for me to come back and share which colors. (At this point in the note I was reading, I was starting to feel really bad. I was just so sure the story would end with her telling me that she was using the same colorway for my socks.) Fortunately – the colors were different. So that means that I am now the proud owner of a new pair of Wollmeise socks and I’m so happy! But does it stop there? No. Because she also included such fun things in my package. This beautiful sock bag (love the fabric), some very handy DPN holders, notecards, Burt’s Bees products, and a magazine from her home state. (That reminded me that I forgot to include a postcard from my area when I sent off my Sockret Pal box to MY pal. Darn.) Zonda, you’re just THE BEST. I totally lucked out in getting you as a pal for this swap. Thank you so much! (And for those of you who are now thinking that it’d be a lot of fun to be in a swap – you’re right. It is! You can google swaps and find info on different ones going on right now.)

In addition to getting fun things in the mail, we’ve also been having a great time with our friends who are visiting. (Go visit Janice’s blog and leave a comment – you might win a skein of Duets Skinny which she pulled right off the Loopy shelf!) We went yarn shopping today. We stopped by Knitorious and found a few things that needed to come home with us. Then we stopped by Trader Joes on the way home. Do you have a Trader Joes? I took this photo to show you some of the chocolate-covered items that are available. Pretty unbelievable. We walked all the rows once and then Iowa Girl said, “Let’s go back to the chocolate-covered row.” It was a marvelous idea. (Among other things, you will find chocolate covered: almonds, pistachios, edamame, raspberry sticks, blueberries, cranberries, pretzel bits, figs, orange sticks, Peanut butter maltballs, cherries, macadamia nuts, cherries, ginger, mint creams, raisins, banana chips, sunflower seeds, espresso beans, cashews, and almonds. Just to name a few.) We really like Trader Joes. 🙂

Sheri tryingtofigureoutawaytomakeourfriendsstayafewmoredaysandnotgohometomorrow