G. Knerd

This holiday season, I had not one, not two, not even three, but four family Christmas celebrations to go to.  Luckily, they were spread out over the course of a week – I’m not sure how I would have survived otherwise.

Also luckily, the people in my family know what I like: yarn and knitting stuff.

I indeed get some sock blockers, which will serve me well with all the socks I’ve managed to create over the years.  Not that I actually block socks – I’m way too impatient for that, just like I can’t stand sock yarn that’s hand-wash only.  However, I think these will go a long way towards helping me take better pictures of my socks, and really, that’s what it’s all about, right?

The yarn deserves it’s own close up – first some yarn from my step-sister-in-law:

It’s Woodland yarn in some gorgeous, subdued colors.  The yarn is part wool and part nettle (but the good part, not the stinging part) and entirely scrumptious.  I don’t know what I’ll be making with it yet, but I’m kind of leaning towards hat & glove (dare I stretch to scarf?) set.

My new mother-in-law got me a very different kind of yarn:

The colors are super bright, and there are all different colors of flecks throughout the yarn.  Plus, the yarn is apparently dyed somewhere close to where my parents-in-law live – it’s super dangerous for me to know that there’s a yarn making operation anywhere near their house, so I’m going to do my best to forget that as soon as possible.

As lovely as the yarn and sock blockers are (and they are, indeed, quite lovely), they pale in comparison to the last knitting gift I received, the one you can’t see in the first picture because it’s in this box:

Can you guess what that is?  That, my friends, is a circular needle case.  I’ve been wanting something exactly like this for years – I knit almost exclusively with circular needles (and by “almost exclusively”, I mean that the last time I knit with something that didn’t have a cable was probably in 2009), and I’ve never had an adequate sorting mechanism for them.

But now?

I feel more organized just looking at it.  It’s so trim, so smart, so perfect for me.

(It might have helped that I slipped the ad for it into the Blanket Thief‘s pocket…and told him which color to get me…)

Now, if only I could find all of my circulars to put into the different pockets, I’d be set…so far, I’ve only got one in there.

In other news, happy new year!  Here’s hoping your holidays were great, and that your 2011 is even better.