I'm going to Germany!

Really, in a couple of days I'll be in Germany. Usually the in-laws visit us in the spring, but they can't make it this year, so I thought, what the heck, I'll fly over there with the kids. Hubby's stuck at home working, so it'll just be me, the boys, and the in-laws. And my knitting, of course. I'm filling hubby's suitcase with knitting projects.

How perfect was it that Carola sent me this Regia German nation sock yarn just a couple of weeks before I leave?! I knit my fingers off to get them done in time for the trip! But I got such a kick out of the flag stripes that it was really a blast to knit them (even with my little falschrum flag flub). I used my patent-pending method of cutting out color sequeces to get the entire heel to be a solid color and keep the striping in tact across the ankle (first used on my Gryffindor socks). And my foot was just long enough to end the sock in the yellow, the color at the bottom of the flag. (Oh, did I mention that these socks are for me? I had planned to make them for hubby but when I asked him if he wanted a pair of Germany socks, he sort of paused, not wanting to disappoint me. I interrupted the silence with a 'woo hoo, I can make them for myself!' and everyone was happy.)

So, any good knitting stores in the Frankfurt/Cologne area I should know about?

I told you hubby's suitcase was filled with yarn!

Germany socks ready for boarding.

Boys-eye view of blue soap at the airport bathroom. B is spinning.

Jetlag.

The boys' favorite time of the day: when the baker comes.

Wow, these German Playmobil figures sure do like ice cream.

Well, yesterday, at least. And I don't like a one of them.

I'm trying to choose the right mitered square technique so I can start this afghan. I've got the size I want finally, but am still not sure of a few things:

1. I personally prefer the look of stockinette squares, especially stockinette squares that are seamed together. But I think I may just like the mitres in the garter stitch better.
2. I love the idea of the mitered square with a full "X" in it (with four sets of mitre decreases) but I'm not satisfied with the way the seam looks in either garter or stockinette stitch.
3. My old dislike of variegated yarns is creeping back. I don't like how the variegated yarn looks in stockinette at all and furthermore, I can't decide how to incorporate the variegated squares into the whole. I'm tempted to nix the variegated all together or maybe just use it for an edging.
4. I haven't quite convinced myself that simple solid squares are okay. Every now and then, I think that I should do stripes. I don't want a pattern that looks busy though. And I don't want to have to plan every square ahead of time.

What does all that add up to? Little progress, much frustration. Time to stop knitting and do something else.

Roar.

who can resist a silly hat?

Fasching (carneval) fashion.

England vs. Brazil

WM (World Cup) practice with Lego soccer and official t-shirts.

Here I am working on hubby's LMKG zip raglan on his parents' couch. Yes, the couch that should be home to a new Manos afghan come Christmas. See the curtains I have to deal with? (They're a little more pink than in the picture - you can see the pink in one of the pictures from yesterday.) Okay, but look at the old blanket next to the sweater. Variegated or not, garter stitch or stockinette, stripes or solid, the new afghan will definitely be better than that!

And it will be. I worked through all my issues and I've finally decided that the afghan will be garter stitch with standard mitre shaping (one set of mitered decreases as given here), without stripes, but with variegated squares.

And now I'm flying on these!

No more knitting progress on the LMKG zip raglan to report. Instead of knitting, I've been shopping the last two days. But I haven't been neglecting hubby's sweater entirely; I was on the hunt for the perfect zipper. I really, really, really wanted a zipper just like in the pattern with a big ring in a nice contrasting color. But I couldn't find any like that around home, so I thought I'd check in Germany.

und fündig!

It's nowhere near as cool as the original, still, it'll do. The zipper might not be much to look at but hey, look at the view from the department store cafe!

It may be a no-name, small town department store, but it has one hell of a view. And sock yarn.

oh wie schön is Canada

This is my new favorite sock yarn. It's called Canadian Color and it's from Regia so you can machine wash it and it's got that crazy 10-year guarantee and everything. And this style makes the coolest stripes! As you may know, I have a little difficulty with the whole variegated yarn thing, but I really dig stripes.

Just so you don't get the wrong idea, it's not all this lovely out here in the Hinterlands. An aunt tipped us off that there was Regia sock yarn on sale for 20% off at the local SparKauf, so we went to check it out.

the "SaveBuy"

They did indeed have Regia on sale, but not in any colorways that I really liked. (Note: Havanah Color is variegated, Canadian Color stripes.) Pssst, if you're looking for FunFur, I know where you can get some cheap! German knitters are waaaay into FunFur.

Still, we didn't come home empty-handed. My father-in-law picked up orange reflective vests that the Germans are required to have in their car in case of an emergency. Woo hoo. Well, he was excited to find them so cheap. And I found these little lovely boxes of sewing notions by Prym. (Have you looked at the Inox needles in your LYS recently? They're all called Prym now.) They were just soooo cute, I couldn't resist!

apparently the Prym people were big in the snap business

Amazing what you find when you go looking for a zipper. Stay tuned tomorrow for another shopping adventure!

"meet" me now - get it?
those Germans are so funny!

What a fun shopping day I had yesterday! Kerrie flew down from London to meet up for a three-hour shopping tour in Frankfurt! What a gal, just flying over like that to see me. All I can say is, she is fabulous! Of course, I didn't manage to take a picture of her, but I did take a picture of some of the incredible hand-dyed yarn she brought me from her online (and soon to be brick & mortar) yarn store, HipKnits.

ooooh, silk and cashmere, yuuuuum

The yarn was so yummy I had it spread all over the table where we sat down to eat. The Kellner was little verblüfft when he brought our drinks over and saw the yarn in the middle of the table. Yes, we're crazy english-speakers who travel hours to scope out a few yarn stores in a foreign city, but still choose to eat lunch at Pizza Hut. We spent so long chatting and eating (pizza, not yarn) that we didn't end up having that much time for the shopping. But I have a feeling that each of us probably has enough yarn already anyway.

Wolle Rödel in Tönesgasse

Still we did our best to find a couple of the shops that Beate told me about. The first yarn shop we visited was Wolle Rödel. They make their own yarns and they are all really lovely. They have variegated and self-patterning sock yarns, soft merinos, delightful cottons and interesting blends. If I lived in Frankfurt (or Munich - they have another shop there that I've visited several times), I would definitely be using a lot of their yarns to make sweaters. They've done a really good job reproducing the styles, gauges, and content of brand name yarns like Lana Grossa and Regia. And their colors are to die for.

Wolle Rödel is for yarnheads!

The second store we found was a beautiful little gem of a yarn store, called Lana.

Lana in Fressgasse

It was so tiny, but we could see from outside that it had all sorts of exquisite yarns like Noro. Unfortunately, Kerrie and I only got to see the store from the outside, because the owner had to close for her lunch hour. And then Kerrie had to ride back to the airport. I couldn't find the third shop that was supposed to be near the main shopping area, so I went shopping for other things (Legos, I bought tons and tons of Legos!) and then rode home and knitted in the train (Regia Canadian Color #4732).

kipping in the Deutsche Bahn

When I got back to my in-laws I found that the boys had spent the whole day building. They'd put together an entire Lego space station with little space vehicles and a rocket ship.

And hiding houses with dining chairs and blankets.

S. is also smiling for the picture in the house

So a good day was had by all. Maybe I should go away more often!

The weather's been gray and rainy and snowy for the first half of our stay here in Germany. It is winter, after all. And it is Germany. So I say, when the weather gives you gray days, make gray squares!

That'll cheer you up! And so will this: In the solid color Manos, I'm getting three full squares out of one skein. (Only two and a half from the variegated skein, for whatever reason.) That means that I should be able to get a decent sized afghan with about 20 skeins of Manos. That's not soooooo so bad. It could have been much worse.

And if you're a 4 1/2 year-old boy, nothing will cheer you up on a gray day like an electric train set!

Bring it on, German weather! We are prepared.

Finally a sunny day, so we decided take a trip up to the local mountain for some sledding. There's no snow on the ground here anymore, but doesn't everyone have a mountain for sledding and skiing a short drive away? Well, they do around here.

Berg ready

wheeeeeeeee!

Actually, it was soooo cold and windy on the mountain that the boys started crying to go home after just one trip down the hill. They enjoyed the ride back to the car at least.

check out that old-timey wooden sled

And where does one go after a trip to the Hausberg? To the HausMcDonalds, of course!

I spent several weeks one summer in Berlin many years ago and there was a street musician who would sing everyday by the Gedächtniskirche with a guitar, a drum on his back that he would bang by stomping his feet, and a harmonica on a holder on his shoulder. He would always sing the Lemon Tree song by Fool's Garden. I don't know why, but I really liked that song.

I used to say the word lemony a lot just because it felt good in my mouth.

And my son B's love of yellow is legendary.

So I guess it's no surprise that I love these yellow squares for the manos afghan.

Well, first of all, only Omis knit in Germany (the big knitting trend really hasn't hit here like it has in America, although crochet is pretty popular among the young hip girls), so I look a little old-fashioned knitting on the train. Then there's the whole how-the-hell-are-you-knitting thing that I get when I'm knitting in public (you know where everyone sort of cocks their head to the side when they don't get something just like a puppy does when he doesn't understand what you're saying). You see, even though most people don't knit, they've definitely got an aunt or a grandma who does and she don't knit English-style, I can tell you that. On the other hand, almost everyone is wearing Regia socks (knit by said aunt or oma), so that mitigates the whole weirdo thing I've got going on a bit.

And since everyone understands the joys of handknit socks, I feel much more comfortable wearing my newly finished socks all over town.

Regia Canadian Color #4732 "Toronto"
folks from Toronto, do these colors remind you of your homeland??

I finished these Canadian Color socks lickety-split (thanks to modern technology and a hubby who knows how to use it, I could knit late into the night while watching my favorite US shows like The Office and Dancing with the Stars!). And lookie, lookie, I even got the colors to match up on the heels and toes.

These are the best-fitting socks I think I've ever made. And I absolutely adore the striping and am now hopelessly addicted to this Canadian Color yarn. (Pair number two is already underway!)

So all in all, knitting in Germany isn't all that different here than at home. I'm just as much of a freak here when I take a picture of a yarn store or buy up all the Canadian Color sock yarn as I would be at home. A knitting geek is a knitting geek wherever she goes.

We woke up at the crack of dawn to catch our flight. The in-laws don't really live that close to the airport, so a 10:30 flight very quickly converts into a 5am wake-up time. Ugh.

That one red suitcase, by the way, was inspected very carefully at check-in. Last year the security folks picked out the boys' suitcase with the music box from their baby mobile in it to inspect. The music box did kind of look like a bomb in the x-ray machine, I'll give them that. They summoned someone who rode over to the check-in area on a cute little yellow bike and ran what looked like a mini-dust buster over it and then rode off again to get the results. It was some sort of machine that could tell whether the "device" had been tampered with or something like that. Of course, hubby's opened up that music box about five times to resolder the electronics in it, because the buttons have been pressed so many times in the last four and a half years that they keep breaking. So I was, needless to say, a little worried. But after about ten minutes they decided that it was okay and let me check in. This year they chose the suitcase filled with my socks, hubby's half-knit LMKG zip raglan sweater, and german boardgames for the kids. They called in the bike-person again and she wiped down the outside of the game boxes and rode off to get the test results. My mother-in-law said it looked like a test for illegal drugs. Illegal drugs in the Junior Labyrinth game, right, of course. After ten minutes they ran the suitcase through the x-ray again and declared it to be okay. Yes, I really am just into boardgames, thank you.

But it was all made up for when they told us we had a window seat. The boys were so thrilled they even translated for Oma so she could comprehend the awesomeness of the situation: "a fensterplatz!" And lookie, we got one of the WM-Deutschland planes with the soccer ball on the nose!

While we were waiting at the gate, I noticed that a man standing behind me was wearing, get this, a gold medal from Turino! How cool is that? It was for Men's Hockey and after searching a bit on the internet, I found out he must have been this guy from the Swedish Hockey team who plays for the Boston Bruins. And that medal was gorgeous. I remember there was some sort of uproar about the medals having a hole in them this time around, but let me tell you, it was impressive. Wow!

The boys played quite well on the plane and I made some progress on my second pair of Canadian Colors socks. (Regia Canadian Classic Colors #4741 "Brasil Color". Nah, it doesn't remind me of Brazil any more than the other reminded me of Toronto. And what does Brazil have to do with Canada anyway?)

Eventually, the boys fell asleep and I got to watch the movie (Elizabethtown - not very good, but Orlando Bloom is worth watching no matter what) and knit quietly. I overheard the couple in front of me telling their seat neighbor about their baby. You could tell there was something special about them. The baby was a typical 4 or 5 month old, who cried when you would expect and had to be carried around most of flight. But there wasn't one second of that nine hour period in the airplane when those parents didn't seem absolutely 100% in love with that baby. No exhausted looks or frazzled nerves. Nothing but pure joy. Then I overheard the word "adoption" and they explained that as soon as the airplane touched down in Boston, the baby would become an American citizen. When we landed they all clapped and I have to say, I got a little choked up.

It's good to be home.

oh, just a little sock yarn

Yes, I did buy some yarn. It's true. But each of the little bags contains some yarn for my best knitbuddies, so if you take those away, it's really not that much that I bought. Certainly not so much when you take into consideration how many Legos I brought back.

and these are just the big sets

I had to borrow an extra suitcase from the in-laws to bring back all the Lego booty. We've got some new Legos to play with now, two Lego sets for the boys' birthday in the summer, and two sets for Christmas. Hey, when you see what you like, you gotta get it while you can, right?

Can I talk to you about Lego for a minute? You see, they've changed their whole program and everything is themed now, like Harry Potter scenes and Star Wars ships and a disturbing number of variations of robots with giant guns. The problem with all of these is that you're just supposed to make the one thing with each boxed set. They used to make sets with more general pieces and instruction books describing several different things you can make with them. But it's all marketing tie-ins and individual units now, presumably to maximize the number of boxes that you have to buy to complete the set or play out the story or whatever. But my boys just want to build. And build. And build. They'll build something from the instruction book and then immediately take it apart to build the next thing. We've bought all the so-called "designer" sets that are still available (except the ones with guns) and I've been keeping my eye open for older sets still on the shelves somewhere. Old stock never stays on the shelves long in America, but I hit the jackpot in Germany. All of the sets I bought back have production dates of 2003 on the boxes and have instructions for 10 or so different vehicles or creations. And two of them are even old Inventor sets with working motors (hubby is sooo excited about those!). So I had to get them, you see?

Oh, a tip from one Lego mom to all you other Lego moms (and aunts and grandmas) out there, I hope you've gotten yourself a couple of these. They really work and help save those fingernails from Lego-induced chips! And with two of them, you can lever even really tiny pieces apart.

Well that about ends this installment of 'everything you ever wanted to know about Legos and more'. Tomorrow, I'll tackle putting away all that sock yarn.

This looks familiar, now doesn't it?

It's the drill box that I used to send out my sockapal2za socks to Carola. The very same drill box that became one of the boxes for the yarn aboard sock yarn swap! I kicked off one half of Yarn Aboard back in February with the radio box that Carola sent me. Now the swap has come to an end with my receiving that old drill box again, this time filled with goodies from Gracie.

Check out that awesome Chocolate Covered Cherries yarn from Brooklyn Handspun! Yuuuumy! Thanks so much to Gracie for the beautiful yarn and all the little treats too.

And the package arrived just in time, cause in a few hours we're outta here, off to Germany for our annual trip to see the in-laws. I've got a lot of knitting planned - check out the yarn suitcase. (Don't laugh, my other suitcase is half-filled with, you guessed it, legos, as it's the boys' birthday and they'll be needing some pressies.)

For me, it's a few weeks worth of design projects and maybe a little baby sweater knitting here and there. Deadlines, baby - wish me luck!

See you on the flip side in a few days!

It was a long, strange trip.

It all started with changing the boys' clothes at the airport. It was hot outside, but cool in the airport (and was bound to be cold in the plane), so we quickly grabbed long pants and socks out of the suitcases before checking them, leaving the boys dressed in freakishly realistic "German" outfits (World Cup t-shirt, jeans, sandals with white socks - it doesn't get more German than that!)

Our first stop was the crazy kinetic sculptures (ball contraptions) at the airport. The boys can't get enough of these things. All the other children were running through the airport playspace playing a complex game of dinosaur/robot/wizard tag ("run, the velociraptor put a spell on me!"), while our boys stood motionless in front of the kinetic sculptures. It was like one of those videos where one person stands still and everyone else blurs by all around them. It actually hurt my eyes to watch them (sort of like watching that wacky All-American Rejects video).

Then we got on the plane. (Photo by B.)

And it got weirder.

Because this year we flew to Germany with Iceland Air. When the pilot made an announcement, B looked at me and asked, "what does that mean?" No idea, kid.

The boys fell asleep cuddling their Pirates of the Carribean II toys, which is a little creepy when you think about it. (But I have to say, these have got to be among the coolest McDonald's toys I've seen. B kept opening and closing his Dead Man's Chest and S wouldn't even let me touch his Captain Jack! I am so stealing that doll as soon as he loses interest in it.)

As we took off there was a huge orange moon (which I couldn't photograph very well)...

...and as we flew north towards Iceland, we saw the most beatiful sunrise. Or maybe it was the midnight sun, I don't know, but it was pretty amazing.

Then, we got our first view of Iceland: coastline, rocks, a couple of dirt roads, rocks, a lone house, more rocks. Isn't Reykjavik supposed to be around here somewhere? (I didn't take a picture, because I was waiting for, well, something to take a picture of, if you know what I mean. Check out this site for pictures of actual places in Iceland.)

Taxiing up to that deserted-looking airport was like being in a scene from Stephen King's The Langoliers. Inside, it was gorgeous though! All wood and glass and stone. Very cool. These Icelanders (wherever the hell they are) must be pretty cool to make an airport like this.

Quick check: yup, still showing the Langoliers outside.

We got on another plane, and finally flew to Germany: trees, fields, groups of red-roofed houses, trees - yes, trees, where were the trees in Iceland?! - and flags, lots and lots of German flags.

Flags, good weather, this can't be Germany! Oh God, we've landed in The Martian Chronicles. Wish us luck.

What could be in there?

Legos, of course!

Must. Build. Now.

Aunt and Uncle help out with the (over 1400!) pieces.

Most giantest helicopter ever, done.

Super truck getting the final touches (chassis, frame, interior with hand brake, gear shift, pedals, side mirrors, glove compartment)... and done!

Wheeeeee!

(Don't you just love that when Dwight asks a ridiculous question on The Office? By the way, saw the German version, uh, not so good.)

Question!
How am I supposed to get over jetlag when it doesn't get dark until like 11:00pm? Seriously, it was way too light at the in-laws' to readjust my internal clock. So we drove south to Munich for some parental R&R and some darkness.

Question!
Is anyone left in the Netherlands? Apparently every single Dutch family was driving south (surely farther than Munich) when we were. I've never seen so many crappy trailers on one road in my life. The A3 was like a camping site.

Question!
Exactly how many H&M's do you need in one city center? If you stand in front of the Tivoli movie theater in the middle of the Fußgängerzone in Munich, you can see FOUR different H&M's. They are within a minute walk of each other. Wow, and I thought I liked H&M.

Question!
Just how am I supposed to post without any pictures?! The lack of image uploading facilities is killing me. Pics to come next week when the mini-vacation is over and it's back to the kiddos and the computer.

For the last five days we've been stuck in the no-internet-connection-land of German wine country bed & breakfasts for hubby's best friend's wedding.

The wine is grown on steep hills and mountains along the river Mosel. Down river is Trier, Germany's oldest city - dating back to 16 B.C. - and one-time seat of the Western Roman Empire.

"Roman" tour guides give walking tours of the ancient sites, like the ruins of the Roman baths, an ancient ampitheater, and the Porta Nigra, a giant Roman gate in the center of the city.

Trier is also home to a beautiful marketplace dating to the middle ages (which contains only one H&M - weak.).

But we were here for a wedding, so enough with the Romans and on to the romance! The happy (and apparently slightly sadistic) couple decided to get married in the Felsenkirche in Idar-Oberstien built into the side of a mountain and reachable only by climbing over 100 steps up from the town square.

Built in the 15th century, legend has it that a man threw his brother over the side of the mountain here because both were in love with the same woman. He built the church where the body fell as pennance for his sin and then collapsed and died inside it when it was finished. Romantic, huh?

Na ja, put a bride in a long gown in front of it and it works. There was applause from the cafes down in the town square as the wedding party started up the steps to the church. They weren't climbing 80 meters up in formal wedding attire though.

After the ceremony, the übersporty couple led us over to a restaurant on another mountain for the party and a group climb up a tower with beautiful views of the countryside.

Very pretty, but I'm going to need some physical therapy after this trip!

Before we went to wine country for the wedding workout, hubby and I spent a little time in Munich, where we met nine years ago.

Frauenkirche

We decided to have a relaxing trip, skipping all the sightseeing stuff and visiting only our favorite places.

Siegestor

Alter Simpl cafe

Löwenparade

Last year, we saw bears in Berlin, this year there were lions in Munich.

a shady Biergarten with no Pfand!

the Trambahn driving through the pedestrian zone

an U-Boot in the Deutsches Museum

This was like the prototype of the first German submarine, complete with two torpedos. Wow.

Kino Mond & Sterne

Zum Abschluß we went to the Open Air Movies and watched The 40 Year Old Virgin dubbed in German. It was just like old times, running to catch the last U-Bahn after the movies before the subway shut down.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I talked to the boys on the phone one night while we were gone. They told me about the Legos they'd built that day and how they'd played in the pool.

old Schlauchboot as pool

And then abruptly said "Tschüß!" and hung up. No "when are you coming back?" or anything. Good German though.

80 bucks for a tank of gas - wow! (That's for only 16 gallons, people.) But it took us to Munich and Trier and beyond.

41 degrees - aaaack! (That's centigrade, people.) It is hot here - don't go telling me about missing out on any big heat wave. We've been sweating. It's like the freaking Mediterranean here. So much so that the Germans are (jokingly) considering switching their agriculture over to growing olives.

Omigod, that was a sign for Legoland!! Darn truck got in my shot, but we totally drove right by it. (Somehow, I think the boys are probably satisfied with the Legoland they've got back at Oma & Opa's, but still, we gotta go there someday.)

We found it, we found it - the Schachenmayr factory store. Oh boy, oh boy....

Boxes and boxes stuffed full of bags of Regia and Gedifra yarn. (You had to buy complete bags - now what am I going to do with 5 100g balls of the exact same sock yarn? I'm not saying I didn't get any, just what am I going to do with it?!)

And hideous samples for sale too. What fun!

The other day, the boys brought flowers over to their Urgroßtante (great great aunt), who lives next door, for her 75th birthday.

Later the local church choir came to sing for her. (They sing a special song during church service for people over 70 every year on their birthday, and once you're 75, they come to your house to serenade you.)

She's the sweetest, spunkiest, and tiniest woman I've ever met. (She used to ride a little moped around the village and since her feet couldn't reach the ground, she had to jump on to get started and jump off to stop!) Look, the boys'll be bigger than her in another year!

She's bought her way into the boys' hearts by always giving them candy.

They don't even know what it's called; for them it will always be Oma Christinechen candy.

Germany has a very famous puppet theater in Augsburg that puts on productions for German television (every German kid - and adult! - knows these shows). The most well known production is Jim Knopf, which involves a little boy named Jim Button, a train named Emma and a king named King Alfonse the Quarter to Twelve-th. (When they were littler, the boys used to make us fast-forward and rewind this one constantly, skipping the story so they could just see the scenes where the little train drives around the island.)

Every year, Oma and Opa introduce the boys to another one of the Augsburger Puppenkiste productions and this year it was Fünf auf dem Apfelstern (Five on the Apple Star), where a strange group - consisting of a sailor, a porcelain doll, a russian nesting doll, a little chinese boy and a blowfish that always burps when anyone mentions food - find themselves on a planet that is essentially a giant apple (thus allowing for lots of burp-worthy conversation).

The sailor, who always wears a thick ribbed sweater and knitted cap, is named Heiko PurlTwo-KnitTwo. The rest of the story is totally weird, but that makes perfect sense to me.

Funny hats.

Rides at the Lochmühle amusement park.

A climbing gym for daddy.

And socks and sandals for everyone!

Trabbi with old DDR sticker in rear window

Iceland, here we come!

Land ahoy!
(look, you can totally see the curved horizon up here!)

Icelandic sweaters for sale in the gift shop

mountain somewhere off the coast of Iceland coming out of the sea

B trying to watch Lazy Town around the drink cart

hey, who left the heat on at home? (It's 8pm, for goodness sakes!)

Why yes, we did bring back some legos and some yarn. Just enough for a little second birthday celebration for me and the boys!

slammer bike for B

technic truck for S

Lana Grossa Teamcolors sock yarn for me

And that's it.* Man, I was so good.

(* Okay, there were some other legos from Oma and Opa, but they're small and I didn't buy them. And then there's the bags of sock yarn I got at the factory store, but I'm not keeping those, so they don't count either, right?)