awesome secret pal!
I have a great Secret Pal! I'd heard stories of SPs flaking out, or being wishy-washy or downright rude... But mine emailed me right away, several times! She's funny, quirky, and she's dared to me to figure out her identity. Her secret name is Special Mittens. I've tried googling "special mittens blog", but of course nothing comes up.
She lives in England and I've already received a package from her: one giant ball of thick 'n thin multicolor Colinette Point 5 (how did she know I'm on an orange/purple kick?) and some glitter yarn from the R2 collection by Rowan. That's right *glitter*. I love glitter... Thank you Secret Pal!!
Here's the yarn:
I started out making a bias knit garter stitch scarf (15 st wide), but ripped it because I thought I might run out of yarn... I stuck my hand in there for scale: Point 5 is huge!
Then, I made a bias knit garter stitch elongated scarf (9 st wide). Yeah, I know, it looks the same, but it's airier, I swear. 
But I don't like it. So the quest for the perfect one skein Point 5 scarf pattern continues.
On another note, Phildar has finally created an online store. Now you won't have to pay exorbitant prices from canadian stores (sometimes double the price!) or wait 2-3 weeks for shipping from Belgium or the Netherlands... For me, the problems of ordering yarn from small yarn stores in Europe was compounded by my incompetent mailroom. They have "lost" so many of my packages, including both of my Phildar orders. Each time, the yarn store was kind enough to send another package. Allow me another example: my aunt sent me a gift via FedEx. I waited and waited and waited. I checked my mailbox twice a day for that little yellow slip. I was hoping that the gift was some Alpaca Silk to make the Somewhat Cowl, so I was not waiting very patiently. Ten days later, my aunt sent me tracking info online, and I realized that the package had been delivered 7 days prior. SEVEN DAYS. ONE FULL WEEK. I ran over to my mailroom, furious, and one of the mailroom guys casually handed it over. No apology, no explanation, nothing. Some of you may know that my mailroom is under investigation because of a high number of "lost" packages. Well, I found out that today is the manager's last day! Did he get fired? Or is he just retiring? Hmm. I hope things change...
Anyway. Phildar. Their website is awesome. You can look at every single page of their magazines. For every single pattern in their magazines, you can click "buy the yarn for this pattern" ("je commande mes fils"), which brings you to a page where you select your size and the color you want. And they ship to the US. Now, if only they would stop adding all that acrylic (*shudder*) to their yarns... But they have plenty of cotton yarns, and linen, and silk. Hmmm, Spring knitting... Too bad I haven't finished my Winter knitting.
