Well, color me blown away.

My friend April just got back from Canada, where her mother passed away and her brother caused her some serious headache. What did I do? I asked her to send me some maple candy. :-/

What did she do? Sent me this amazing package of goodies, which I found last night as I went grumpily home after failing to park at the LYS (which is, inconveniently, right next to the Hard Rock Cafe):


This is sock yarn (green!), some exceedingly cool postcards (look at that darling mouse, and there's a cool art card that has a touch of the Magritte about it), maple tea (which will be delicious with a splash of rice milk, I think, maple candy (MMMMMM) and Maple Cream Cookies (MMM!!!!!!!!!). Which I already ate a lot of.

April also sent this succinct and accurate pin, which should probably be tattooed on my forehead:

Sigh. Calorically bad, but extremely good for my mood. April is the Grrl.

Finally, I am really excited about this little gauge swatch. As you can see, it's obvious I need to use a larger needle with the multicolored part to make the gauge match. So why so excited?
Well, because look at the color match there. It's amazing. Remember how I was a little worried I didn't have quite enough Scheepjes to make Picovoli? Well, I do if I make the neckline, hemline and sleeves from the lovely multicolored yarn above — it's Crystal Palace Mikado that I got off deStash, a small rayon-cotton tape yarn. I had no idea what I was going to do with it. And I had no idea the Scheepjes matched. Yahoo!