look what came in the mail

My mailbox has been bursting with goodies recently.*

I only bought one thing -- a skein of black Cascade 220 -- but I've been selling and swapping a lot. Several weeks ago, I went on a fiber crawl in Maine with some blog buddies. I fell in love with two spinning wheels, and realized that I needed to save some money for a wheel of my own. I decided that some of my stash would be better off in other peoples' homes. A big thank you to everyone who bought something from me! My wheel fund has grown quite a bit :)

Through the wonder that is Ravelry, I also arranged several trades. Let's call it "stash reassignment."

First, several swaps for some Araucania Nature Wool. I am planning some felting projects, and learned the hard way that it can be important to use all of the same kind of yarn when knitting something to felt, or uneven felting could occur.**

I love the colors and subtle variegations of the Nature Wool. I checked out the yarn on Ravelry before swapping, and it looks like it felts pretty well. I'm planning some more felted clogs, with dark soles and lighter tops.

From the top left:
2 skeins of purple from Kara
2 skeins of gray from Megan
2 skeins of navy blue from Megan
2 skeins of brown, one from Jen and another from Megan
2 skeins of purple-ish pink from Jess

I gave Megan three different things from my stash, and she also sent me some Patons Merino that I didn't photograph! Jen got some All Seasons Cotton. I made some sock project bags for Kara and Jess. Kara got the one on the left, and Jess got the other two -- one as a swap, and she bought the second one :)

Here's Jess' photo of the bags with stuff in them --

I also got a skein of beauuuuuutiful Wollmeise from winning a contest on Rachel's blog. That's the blue in the lower right corner of the mosaic above. Rachel rocks! Not only did she give out really cool yarn as a prize, but she also let me pick the color I wanted and then bought it just for me :)

And, I swapped with Sarah for a copy of Mason Dixon Knitting, which I've already put to use (more on that in another post). I have a couple of other swaps pending, too! Good times :)

I'm really happy with my new yarn. I am much more likely to use this than what I had in the stash, lovely as those things were. And I had a lot of fun making sock bags. Kara liked hers so much, she's going to buy 2 more from me!

All around, a great experience, and I made some new friends!

*****

* That's a figurative expression. We actually have a mail slot in the door. When anything bigger than the slot arrives, it gets left between the wood door and the storm door. I can tell it's a good mail day when I get home and the storm door is held slightly ajar from all the packages.

** That's another post. One that requires photos that I have not yet taken!