Falling Leaves

It arrived in the mail this week ~ along with the full moon, clear cold nights and change in the air that signals autumn...my favorite time of the yarn and my yarn gift from Natalie:



Beautiful yarn in flaming fall colors and a pattern written by Natalie herself called Falling Leaves. The photo that inspired her is inspiring to me, too...I love it!

I did reskein the yarn (see below) and I really, really want to start on the socks right NOW ~ LOL ~ but I have so many other little projects close to completion that I should finish first. But couldn't I at least cast on?!?



Thank you so much, Natalie, and thank you Celena for a fun swap!

Thank You Kristie!!

Today I received a package from my fabulous swap partner, Kristie. I LOVE IT!!!



She sent me this beautiful yarn and the picture that inspired it. Not only that, she also sent me New Pathways for Sock Knitters by Cat Bhordi and some Ghirardelli chocolate.



I can’t wait to find the perfect pattern to make myself a pair of socks. Thanks so much Kristie!!

First Sock Done

I have the first sock finished.
I looked through all my
books until I found the perfect

pattern. I ended up using Embosed Leaves
Socks out of the Interweave
Knits Favorite Socks.

I'm really happy with the way it turned out now for sock number 2.

MMMMMMMMMMM, Yarn!

As scheduled I received my hand dyed sock yarn on Monday. It's funny now when I look back on the emails from Celena, because it was me that she wanted to surprise, and boy did she! Not only did she dye the perfect colorway for the sock pattern I've been itching to knit, but she also dyed merino/nylon spinning fiber! Oh, the two together bring me back to "The Crush" season in Sonoma,CA. My yarn is perfumed by the fragrance of the most adorable chocolate goat's milk soap in the shape of a sheep. Do you know how hard it is not to eat it! Underneath it all you'll see the largest knitting bag I now own. Oh the possibilities!


Thanks, Celena, for all your thoughtful touches.

Felicia

Ursa's yarn from Susan

So my package arrived today. The person dyeing yarn for me hadn't contacted me so I didn't know who she was. And surprise! It's Susan, or JustKeepKnitting from San Fran. She certainly paid attention to the colours I like, as the skein contains my favourites - blues, greens, purples, burgundy...
It came with a fun sock purse and a lovely card with a painting on it of some wine, a big wedge of watermelon, what looks like a half of a cataloupe melon, both on plates. With the variety of colours on this painting, the colours she could have used are varied indeed: gold, creamy yellow, white, the pink/red of the watermelon flesh.
The yarn up close.

Thanks again, Susan!

cheers
Ursa

Yarn From Cassandra For Meghan

I received this in the mail on Friday, but was unable to get pics up until today.

I love love love what Cassandra sent me!! It is based off of my Wedding colors (we will celebrate our 3rd Anniversary this October)
Ironically it came in the mail the same day as a Jury Summons for Kings County Superior Court for, no lie, September 11th...

The Yarn was by far the better of the 2 things in my mailbox that day!

my hand dyed yarn arrived

Thank you Christina for your "The Litte Mermaid Princess Ariel" hand dyed colorway. It's a skein of lace weight, 440 yards. It included a sock pattern on the inside of her home made label.

Thank you, Felicia!!!

I am so thrilled with my package from Felicia!! Just look at this gorgeous yarn!! The photos do not at all do it justice. It's wonderfully muted shades of greens and blues, with a bit of yellow. Felicia dyed this yarn for me with Superwash Merino in sport weight. She calls it "PG Getaway" after her home in Pacific Grove, California.

Along with my beautiful yarn, Felicia also sent me some really fun gifts. There is some lavender-scented vegetable oil soap, some "beak balm" (not sure what to do with that, yet), a lovely Lantern Moon notepad, and a postcard with a photo of the beach at Pacific Grove. Each item is fabulous!

Now, on with the search for the perfect sock design to showcase this beautiful yarn. Thank you, Felicia!!

My package from Shelly!!

I had a very sad day when I found out that two of my skeins of sock yarn were ruined in what I call "The Sippy Cup Incident of 2008." My day was made better when I found this in my mailbox. It's a beautiful tweedy orange yarn, perfect for a pair of Halloween socks.
Included in my box was a crocheted business card holder, which is the perfect size for my ipod!!
I love the sock yarn that my partner made for me. Thank you so much Shelly!!
She also sent me a note that something else is on it's way to me, I can't wait!! This was my first
swap, and I'm definitely going to participate in more.

A little extra info about Christabel's yarn

So here is some info about the yarn I dyed for Christabel (who has already posted below). The second photo below is the "inspiration" photo, of Chestermans Beach near Tofino, on Vancouver Island (I'm in Victoria, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island). It wasn't a postcard but a photo I told when I was there in June. Our family goes there every second year, and I love it! I had planned to print out the photo to include in the package, but my printer would have none of it! So I had to settle with emailing the photo to her, and including it here for all of you to see.
I call the colourway, oddly enough, "Chestermans Beach". I dyed it Kettle-dyeing style, adding a little extra water so that it wouldn't be too dark of colour saturation. I wanted to leave some areas white to show the fluffy clouds in the sky, a little brown and green for the trees and small islands shown, and some sand, and of course, the blues and blue-greens of the sky and sea.



I look forward to seeing the socks later on!

cheers
Ursa

Adding to the Blog

I had a request (which I think is a great one btw) that after the yarn you dyed is posted you create a reply post of your own telling everyone what method you used to dye the yarn. If you took any pictures during the dyeing process we'd love to see those too.

I LOVE this yarn!

Okay I finally figured out how to do this after spending WAY too much time trying to understand how to post a blog before asking for help which Celena was nice enough to provide. I'm so happy with the yarn I received! I'm looking for the perfect sock pattern for it right now and have it narrowed down to 4. Meghan's inspiration was Niagra Falls which was a really unique thing to dye yarn to go with. There was more candy but my 3 year old ate it before I took the photo. She also included a pack of notecards which was really nice. I was really happy with this swap! Thanks Celena and Meghan!

Perth to San Francisco in record time

I received my swap package from Christabel on Friday. Wow--what a package! This yarn is amazing--it is honestly the best sock yarn base I have ever seen. And Christabel--you did such a wonderful job dyeing the yarn. It practically glows--I really like the orange. And the sockdown challenge for September is to knit with orange yarn, so the timing is perfect. I'm planning to make Nancy Bush's First sock in Shell Pattern--I'm really looking forward to knitting with this yarn.



The entire package is very generous--Christabel even included a hand-crocheted peach pin. Home canning peaches is a summer tradition in my family and peaches hold special memories for me. Thank you very much for everything Christabel--it is wonderful and I appreciate your thoughtfulness.

Yay!

My yarn arrived yesterday. Many thanks to Ursa!



Such beautiful colours. I can't wait to knit it up.

The Fun is About to Begin

I've heard from several participants that they already mailed their swap packages out. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's blog posts. This is where the swap really gets fun!