Swappin' Goodies

The fiber fairies have been smiling on me these last few days, let me tell you. I've gotten a package every day since Saturday. Actually there were two yesterday but I didn't get the second until this morning, so that counts as three days in a row (not counting Sunday, of course). I'll share them with you in the order I received them:
Package 1: From my Secret Pal, who remains a complete mystery to me. I don't know much about her aside from that she lives in San Francisco (great city) and that she's been quite good to me. Here is my second SP8 package:

Here we have two skeins of purple (hello Project Spectrum) Patons Bella (she suggested a cabled hat, which is an idea I can totally get behind), Outside magazines 2006 Buyer's Guide (which I had actually looked at and meant to buy, but I didn't get around to it, so this is great), and a needle felting kit and pack o' fiber. I'm pretty excited about the needle felting - I'd seen this kit before and was curious about it, so I'll definitely be trying it out soon. I have some yarn ready to make a felted purse, so I'll probably put some needle-felting on that when it's finished. I also got a new Knit Picks catalog on Saturday, with a big section on needle-felting, so I read up on it a bit and I'm all set to go. Thank you secret pal, I love my package! Can't wait to find out who you are :)

Package 2: The yarn I won in the Dye-o-Rama swap, from Cider Moon:

I have to say it - this yarn is very nice in texture, and in dyeing, and is all around lovely, except that the colors are not really me. In reality the yarn is less teal and more chartreuse than it appears in the photo. However, I'm sure I will use this yarn to make a lovely gift for someone who can pull off chartreuse with more panache than I can. And, I'm very happy to have won it, since I never win anything, and it is really nice. In fact, the more I look at the photo the more it's growing on me. We'll see...

Package 3: My July Colorswap package, from Kristi:

Kristi went all out with this package! There are two skeins of purple Knit Picks Palette, which I think I might use for socks, maybe lace armwarmers? There are many options. There was also a bath bomb (love those), lip gloss, and a nifty purple flower, which will live on my desk in the lab. She also made me a little pouch for stitch holders and yarn scraps and the like, which is very nice. There was also a tube of very pretty amethsyt beads, that managed to sneak under the tissue for the photo shoot. I'm not sure what I'll do with them - there may be enough for a necklace, I'm not sure. Cetainly a bracelet. Then there was some fun stuff, like glitter watercolors (can't wait to use those - I don't remember the last time I painted something that didn't count as home improvement), and some interesting candy that I've not seen before but I'm hypothesizing is like PopRocks, which are totally great. And a cute card as well. Kristi has impeccible handwriting. I have pretty neat handwriting but I'm very jealous of hers. Thank you Kristi, I love my package, and I hope that yours arrived and that you liked it as well!

Phew, that was a lot of stash enhancement! Tonight the Fiberphiles and I are going to the Seattle Mariners Stitch & Pitch. The Mariners play the Toronto Blue Jays. The weather is lovely, and the knitters will be out in force. I'll try to document the occasion like a good blogger, but it might be a few days before I get the photos up since I'm spending the week at the International Herpesvirus Workshop (in Seattle - my first international research meeting and I don't even get to go anywhere). If you click on that and like the logo, it was designed by my labmate Stephanie and we're very proud - it's been a huge hit at the meeting.