Oh yeah baby

Today's post is accompanied by the track 'jump around' by house of pain. Not, as they might sound, an emo grunge band. But some hip hoppers from the nineties who wanted to put the 'irish' back into hirishop hop.

Because, Lo! A mighty box from my most excellent secret pal has appeared and Lo! It is truly mighty. This was sooooo cool and really reminded me why secret pal is such a great great thing. It is so lovely to get not just one but a whole box full of presents all tailored to yoooooooooou! Let us begin... first up is a notebook and pencils for sketching impromptu kniting designs.

But... this isn't just any notebook. It has a picture my sp took herself on the cover, some personalised toe up sock instructions inside AND knitters graph paper at various tensions glued to some of the pages. How cool is that? Here it is again...

Then we have the edibles, and not so edibles.

I love it that she warned me not to eat the lush bath bomb that looks like chocolate. Ahhhh, how well you know me. Don't tell Pooch but the rabbits didn't quite make it through the night and there was also the most delicious cherry choc bar which didn't even make it to work. I really think I have a problem but let's not go into that now. Isn't the little sheep cute! He's is one of those really really soft jellybean ones which I was in fact eyeing up to give to my sp at the weekend.

Then, make sure you are sitting down, not just one but TWO addi needles for doing magic loop socks. Oh yeah baby.

Plus yummy lipbalm in both vanilla and strawberry which I had put as my two favourite scents. How well thought out is this parcel?

And of course having provided a sock pattern and the needles, what else but some delicious sock wool? I am so spoilt! Not just the regia in a delicious shade that makes me think of chocolate cherry bars and which I haven't seen before, but some hand dyed yarn from a place she did tell me but in my excitement I have temporarily forgotten (sorry) but that is local to her.

This yarn is really beautiful - the photos don't do it justice. I kept picking it up and combining it with other things from the parcel. Here it is with the card she made, which also uses the photo from the notebook.

I am just blown away by the generosity and thought that has gone into it. My pal had wrapped everything beautifully with lashings of red tissue paper and gorgeous ribbon. She says in her letter how she is more into cool tones so thinking 'red' was a real challenge but one she has risen to wonderfully. I spent the rest of last night trying to think of a sock pattern that would do the yarn justice. I was thinking maybe something with cables? She did say it gives wonderful stitch definition. Any suggestions?

Wooha!