Thursday, March 20, 2008

Lovely, lovely yarn!

With all the Heathers in the swap, the chances of having a Heather as a partner were high. My spoiler was Heather Fo. She sent me a box of goodies pictured above. Heather didn't include a note or labels on the gifts, so here's my interpretation:

Something Funny -- Grumpy Old Men & Grumpier Old Men DVD

Something Round -- a glass mug with a really cute knitted cozy (from Interweave Knits Holiday issue, according to her blog). I assume it's round because the top certainly is.

Something T -- white tea from Zhena's Gypsy Tea in the Sense of Peace flavor. It's got Egyptian Mint and Sweet Roses. Sounds like the perfect tea to enjoy in the mug.

Something Local -- a big fat skein of gray alpaca yarn from Lambspun of Colorado, located in Heather's city

Something Green -- beautiful pale green skein of cashmere and wool, again from Lambspun of Colorado

Something Chocolate (Spoiler's Choice) -- Ghirardelli hot chocolate, another good candidate for the mug

Something Hard -- Bellagio white chocolate cocoa mix. I say it's hard because it was hard for me not to rip this open and drink it last night.

Heather, please correct me on the categories if I am wrong. Thanks for everything!

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Oh My Gosh ... WoW!

Christine, thank you soooo much for my lovely package. It arrived today, but unfortunately I haven't had time to get to the computer until now, nevermind take photos... it's soooo lovely! I absolutely adore the yarn and the book.. it's perfect! My favorite item is my little Alien, and you have no idea how special it is to me because my Cocoa Swap pal didn't actually send me a knitted buddy! :-(

I will be taking photos later tonight or tomorrow (spring break started today and I have a house full of kids still, and my mother in law is here... so.. when things get quiet again tomorrow I"ll get back here with photos and a proper thank you!)

Michelle

Wow! Thank you Kathleen!

Click on the arrows below to change slides....

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Package sent

I sent my package to my parnter last week. I have not heard anything from her nor has she posted to her blog. I am hoping she received it as other packages I mailed that day have arrived at their destinations.

Teresa, could you please let me know if it arrived?

Monday, March 17, 2008

Not just one box...but TWO!

I just zipped home this afternoon for a short bit (I forgot my wallet and have to go to the grocery store after I pick up the kids from school), and found not just one box, but TWO boxes on my doorstep. I think one is for this swap and the other is from the Winter Doldrums Swap.

I don't have time right now to do anything but this quick post but I will check back in later once I can open the boxes.....Sharon in PA and Kathleen in VA - the package is here!!!!! Thank you!

Package in VA!

Hi Folks - Posting on Behalf of Karen O who got her package from AnneMarie a bit back, but had troubles figuring out how to post pictures! You can check out her loot here!

Saturday, March 15, 2008

From Ohio to Ontario!


I came home from a great field trip at the Butterfly conservatory to find my package waiting!  I thought it was really neat that the little notes Krystal left for me had butterflies on them;  I couldn't have picked a better day to open my package!  Thanks Krystal!
Here is a photo to entice you, the rest is on my blog, in two parts (because I like to take lots of photos).  Part 1, and Part 2.
Thanks Carly, for a great swap!

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Success!

Yay! Thanks to everyone for being responsive, as of right now, I have heard from everyone who has a partner waiting on a package that the are en route. This means everyone should be seeing a box soon. There are 13 folks waiting, and 2 boxes received but not recorded on the group blog. I'll be in touch again if there are outstanding packages still not received this time next week.

Once the boxes are all received, well, we're wrapped up! Because I'm a little crazy, I'm going to send you all a little questionnaire for feedback so I can make the next round even better! I plan to open signups at the end of April for the next one!

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

My turn!

My package arrived this past Friday! And what a treat it was! Thank you so much to Lesley for such a great box o' goodies!!!


Something hard was a Clover thread cutter pendant. Sweet!
Something T was a sheep tape measure. Check out that wild fringe tail!
Something round was Cookie A's Mingus sock pattern. Because you knit socks in the round... get it?! get it?!
Something local was Nova Scotia Blueberry Jelly. Majorly yum!
Something green was sock yarn she dyed in Lime and Grape Koolaid! yay for purple and green! Too Kool!
Something her choice was a very useful project bag to clip on a belt or strap that she made herself!
Something funny was rubber chicken stitch markers... Wait. Did she say "rubber chicken stitch markers...?"

Yes I did!!!

Lesley, I thoroughly enjoyed this box and I thank you so very, very much!


My box arrived!

Photo evidence at right :)

My spoiler had warned me that my box might be a little late, but no worries :) It arrived yesterday and with hockey championships (mites) and other family stuff, I simply didn't get to open it. That's okay, tho, because today is MY BIRTHDAY! so it was fun to wait and open it today.

I got a LOVELY parcel from Heather of wanderingstitch.blogspot.com. She's in Alaska, which is pretty exciting (particularly to this gal in Phoenix who misses 4 seasons).

In my box:

Something local - Rabbit Ridge Designs Handdyed Yarn from Anchorage (that's the skein right in front of the book)
Something T - tub time stuff - bath gels, bath fizzies, tub tea, a FANTASTIC rubber ducky-sheep soap!
Something green - a leaf pattern bath mitt from Knit 1 Crochet 2 in a cute little bag and complete with soap (i'm choosing not to think that Heather has received word that I stink - all this bathing stuff :D )
Something funny - the Stitchy McYarnPants book, which is, as you might guess, HYSTERICAL!
Something hard - stitch markers with hockey goalies! My boys were covetous. Maybe this will motivate them to learn to knit ;)
Something round - Knitterella gift tags. I've lusted after these, so they were a great surprise.
Spoiler's Choice - a sock pattern (Ariel Socks from The Knitter)and 2 skeins of Soxx Appeal yarn. That's a GREAT name for yarn. The pattern looks interesting and I'm excited to give them a try.

Thanks so much, Heather!

Lows and Highs

Cross posted on my blog here.
If you looked down on the ground today, you might have found me sprawled on the sidewalk or under my car in the sitter’s driveway… I was kind of afraid that the under the car thing was going to result in an “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” moment. Aren’t I too young for that? Enough of the ice and snow already. Unfortunately there is more of it in the forecast tomorrow and again on Friday. So those were a couple of lows today.
Fortunately, our stop at the mailbox was more of a high point to the day. We have one of those lovely Canada Post Superboxes so that the postal workers don’t have to put too much of an effort into delivering our rural mail. (I’ll tell you the moving the mailbox multiple times story sometime when I’m really peeved at our local post mistress.) Having managed to get myself out from under the car once, I wasn’t risking a second time, so Older Son very kindly retrieved the mail. Isn’t it nice when the kids are useful? Just junk mail in the regular mailbox, but there was a key to a package compartment…
I was waiting on two packages – one being something from (Not So) Cynical Knitting Gal’s contest (I had received confirmation from the United States Postal Service that it had been posted) and the other being my Scavenger Hunt Package. Which one would it be? It was my Scavenger Hunt Package from Penny!
And then there was another low… The realization that the camera has gone away with Mr. Me to Halifax for a couple of days and then a couple of days in St. John’s. Ack! I can’t take pictures until he gets home. I (very) briefly considering letting Penny know that it had arrived and explaining about the photos, but I decided that I’d just open it and try to describe everything. So here goes:
The box was a 12 by 8 ¾ by 9 ¾ Smurfit-MBI recycled corrugated box – hey – she’d already hit the green category! (As a side note, I mention the brand of the box because it always makes me think of the Smurfs…) Upon opening the box I found a layer of sparkly red tissue paper covering all of the packages. The packages were wrapped in tissue – green, red, plaid, floral and one item was in a lime green bag… I just kept on taking them out of the box. There were 15 in total! I opened them in the order that they were described / identified in the accompanying letter…

First - “Green” was 3 balls of a lovely green shade of On-line “Tessa”, wrapped in green tissue paper and a green floral lei. It was purchased at Woseley Wardrobe, who even have their own Ravelry group! Very nice…
Second - “Hard” was a very sweet sheet mug with a hard vacuum packed bag of Irish Cream coffee.
Third – “Local” #1 and “local” #2. How great is that? Local #1 is a box of Morden’s Toasted Marshmallows. I’ll try to keep the kids out of them until I can snap a picture. They look and smell luscious… Local #2 is a skein of local 100% wool hand dyed sock weight yarn. It is heathered in shades of aqua blue, mauve and pink. Penny very wisely warned me that it is NOT superwash… (She must have read about some of my unfortunate felting episodes.)
Fourth – “Spoiler’s Choice”. Spoiler’s choice included 6 separate packages. There is a very sweet and lovely amigurumi book (those things just keep hollering at me) and 5 little packages with assorted yarns from Penny’s stash to make ‘gurumis. Now I think that that was a lovely thing to do in so many ways – it has given me a great colour selection and it would have also been suitable for the green category – and recycling is always a good thing. Love it!!! And there were 3 bags of sour candies to munch while I create ‘gurumis.
Fifth – “Round”. Round was a “Round Tuit”. What is this? It is a very pretty round box that is labelled “tuit”, with the explanation inside of how this should make my life easier since you’re always hearing people say they’ll do something when they get a “round tuit”. (Inside the “tuit” there is a round notebook and pen. The pen is from Penny doing decoy mail, but I’m going to have to ask her to explain that since I don’t know what it is.)
Sixth – “T is for Tiny”. Tiny as in tiny knitting needles, beads and crochet cotton with which I can make an amulet bag. The beads are a very pretty blue and the crochet cotton is a sort of cerise-y pink. Pretty!
And finally, “FUN-ny”. What knitter wouldn’t want a set of knitting word magnets? Very fun and very funny. My kids are going to LOVE these on the fridge!
At the very end there was a package that had a note on it to open it last. Inside there were patterns for a scarf to go with the green yarn (Ribbons Scarf from Yarn Yenta) and for the Bead Knitted Amulet Bag from S. Debra Santaniello.
Thanks again Penny for such a great package!

Checking my own math

OK, an update to my previous announcement. I had missed a few items blogged, so we stand at

29 packages received and posted to the group blog
3 package received, waiting for group blog post
10 packages known to be coming late or currently on the way

leaving 5 packages unaccounted for. I emailed the 10 folks just now to confirm that you are, indeed, waiting on a package. If you didn't get my email, it means you have either received a package or you know from your partner (or me) that your package is coming late.

If you didn't get my email and you aren't expecting your package to have been late, email me ASAP!

Let's all be good swappers so we can wrap up this week :)

(Edited @ 1:40 to update package counts. . . . down to 5 in limbo!)

Received swap package ....

I received a wonderful swap package in yesterdays mail from Leta!!



Something round: A wonderful ball of Merino yarn...beautiful colorway!
Something funny: A great travel mug with quirky avatars!
Something local: A notepad and a postcard from Iowa!
Spoilers choice: Two boxes of tea, to use with my something funny!!
Something hard: A cute round tin with a candle inside!
Something related to the letter "T": A tea towel that she embroidered a llama on, it is very cute and nicely done!
Something green: Small green post it notes to use with my knitting.

What is wrong with this picture......?



It was an extra something green, it took me a minute to figure it out but once I unzipped it, it was quite obvious that it was a "green" shopping bag. Then I saw the label....LOL

Here is a close up of the handy work.....




Thank you so much Carly for hosting such a fun swap. And thank you Leta for such a fun package!!

(I should have included this earlier.....From the back of the post card;

Brandon, Iowa, home of the state's largest frying pan, is just one mile west of US Interstate 380 off exit 49, roughly half way between Cedar Rapids, and Waterloo. the frying pan measures 14.3 feet tall by 9.3 feet wide and weighs 1,020 pounds. It was created in honor of Brandon's cowboy breakfasts, held twice a year in May and September. The open-fire breakfasts typically serve 1,500 people, courtesy of 80 local volunteers.

PS.. My package is waiting pick up by the postal person this morning. Going Priority.

I'm wearing my moderatror hat. . . .

Good Morning Swappers!

So, here is a status of where we are. 26 packages have been received and blogged. I know of 0 packages received and not yet blogged. 6 packages I was contacted about being late or were posted as 'mailed' on the blog here but are not yet received. That leaves 15 packages that are unaccounted for. YIPES!

So, if you have received your package and not yet blogged it, please get it posted soon. I also know that sometimes customs is LONG for packages sent ground vs priority to or from Canada. I will wait until the end of this week before I start badgering you individually if your partner does not have a package. If you haven't mailed yet, you can avoid my pestering by mailing ASAP by priority mail. Don't forget, USPS has flat rate boxes and, if you buy postage online, your delivery confirmation is free!

TSK TSK TSK!!!

Such a baddd baddd girl!!! My sender out herself! (you can see the details on my blog.) I am so enjoying my book and my little goodies. TSK TSK TSK.......

Fiber Bloopers (and More)

A Million thank yous!