Since I work downtown, I’m often responsible for shuttling knitting related objects between Naperville and Chicago residents.  As the people who rely on this service knows, its, well, slow.

Unfortunately, that has often led to very slooooow Wow! Shipments.

This post is both for Barb’s Simba and mine July Wow Shipments.

First, Simba.   Simba signed up for the club.  He had all this to pick from.

So, he looked and sniffed and wandered around…

And picked out a lovely skein of Lucy Neatby!

Simba is super excited!

Now, for me, I got a lovely skein of Socks that Rock Lightweight Calico!

Note:  This post was made under the influence of half a bottle of Lynfred Winery Cranberry Wine.

Yes, that’s right, it’s now time for the Wow!  Look at what I found in my Stash! Sock Club.   The idea was actually Monica’s - mainly, we have way too much sock yarn to be joining any clubs, and yet, we wanted to be special too.

The original name for the club was “I wish I could join a sock yarn club but I already have way too much sock yarn in my stash”. The shortened name would’ve been “IWICJASYCBIAHWTMSYIMS” which is a little cumbersome. So we came up with this dandy club of our own.

Here are the rules:

1. Once a month, go into your stash.
2. Find a skein of sock yarn.
3. Take a picture of it and post it on your blog or just wave it around and go “WOW! Look what I got this month!”
4. You get extra points if the skein is still in the bag or box you brought it home in.
5. You get super extra points if the receipt is still with the sock yarn.
6. You get quadruple points if you actually make a pair of socks out of that skein.

What do you do with the points? If you earn 90 million by the end of the year, you get to buy more sock yarn!

You too could join this fun and exciting group! If you’re on Ravelry the group is here. But you don’t have to be on Ravelry to be part of this awesome group!  Just stick this button on your blog and link back to this post.  (Well, put it on your own server, then stick it on your blog.  Or don’t use the button at all.  We don’t care.):

Then post once a month, and you are SO part of our awesome club.

Thanks to the awesome Julianne for our graphics!

P.S.  You can find me on Ravelry here.

Guess what?  Hunter Cat is Super Famous Again!   He made it on to icanhascheezburger.com!

I didn’t write that caption - mine was not nearly as funny.  But when you upload an image to the lolcat builder, other folks can use them to make their own.   Laurel actually took that picture, and I know I’ve posted it to this blog before.

Knitting wise, I’ve been working on the “Flower Shawl” from Couture Knit Elegance 11 Knit that Monica lured me into buying.  It’s a Japanese knitting book.  I cropped out this picture based on the preview.

This super nice blogger posted a better picture of the book and pattern.  Japanese patterns are actually standardized by the Japanese government, so once you know the chart symbols, it ought to be fairly straight forward.    However, I was having a heck of a time figuring out the yardage required.   Luckily, the above link translated the critical bit, and I was able to figure out that it uses a little under a 1000 yards of a DK weight yarn.   I had some dark green Rowan Felted Tweed in my stash that is working perfectly for it.  Mine is more rustic, but I love how its looking.

However, apparently I’m too lazy to take a picture, so you all will have to wait.

Speaking of Japanese Knitting books, YesAsia.com has a ton of them, and they do free international shipping if you order over 25 dollars.   Best yet, their site is largely in english.  What I’ve been doing is finding a knitting book, and then clicking my way through the suggestions.  Many of them have pictures of the inside of the book you can preview as well, which helps.

I realize you all haven’t actually seen any of my knitting in a very long time.    So, with great pride, I introduce…

Dottie Dog!

She came from Knitted Toys: 25 Fresh and Fabulous Designs by Zoe Mellor.   I love this book - all of the animals are adorable in it.   I used Elann’s Sonata  instead of the Rowan Handknit Cotton the pattern called for.  Talk about an expensive puppy if I had knit it out of Rowan.

It worked out beautifully - Sonata has a huge color range, so it was easy to substitute.  In the book, Dottie is blue, but since Dottie is going to live with a girl baby, I made her pink.

She’s actually going to live with the boyfriend’s coworker’s daughter, and the boyfriend requested pink.   I’m clearly in love, since I hate pink.   But I love how Dottie Dog turned out, even if she did get into all our food at Panera.

I only used 1 and a half skeins of the pink, but I bought 3 skeins.  So, I have plenty left over.   Her orange nose comes compliments of Monica, because I bought the wrong color of orange from Elann.

Have a happy 4th of July from all of US!

I hope you don’t get a beer can stuck up your butt!

(Picture from Aimee, who says it made excellent chicken from this recipe. Which Dee originally sent me, and I forwarded to Aimee.)