So, what happens when your post-it note loving and rather efficient sister sends you a birthday card, knowing you want knitting stuff ? Well, this:
The reason I know she's efficient ? (Other than knowing her for all of her life...) She used double sided sticky tape to attach the money:
And I haven't yet worked out a way to detach it, without removing half of the card. I suspect I'm going to need a hairdryer to melt the glue!
As I'm impatient and actually find the stuck money quite funny, I've already spent it on these:
We also have a branch of The Works bookshop in our town, with lots of books at massively reduced prices where I bought this:
Seeing how many knitting patterns have crochet included, it's a skill I want to learn. With clear instructions, UK terminology and at less than half price, it was a good spend of birthday money. It'll probably take until this time next year until I make it past the first few pages! Then, the next day I went in to have a better peruse and got these:
A book with Japanese sock knitting patterns. Not necessarily as fussed about the socks, am interested in the stitch patterns which may not occur in British knitting. I'm off to Japan next year; it's research for the trip.
And another book on vintage knitting, because the patterns looked beautiful and the book was cheap.
And if that wasn't enough - another history type book, which really can only be justified by being a birthday present and therefore totally frivolous; there's no way I could have justified buying it otherwise:
Knitting: Fashion, Industry, Craft from the Victoria and Albert Museum From what I've read of it (only the first few pages), it's amazing.
Yes, I am a very, very lucky lady.
