Happy Mail from the Sock Yarn Swap Stash!

Hi friends!  How was your weekend?  Mine was lovely and sun-filled (a bit of a rarity here) and made even better by the arrival of an absolutely stunning package from Tammy of Gracey’s Goodies for the lovely Sock Yarn Stash Swap that Kat from Felinity Knits organized!

I was completely bowled over my Tammy’s generous package!  First, I loved that it was New England-themed (Tammy lives in Connecticut)!  And the yarn — oh the yarn! Coupled with all the lovely little extras that she popped in (a sheep pez disepenser — AHHH!), this package had me gleefully exclaiming as I unpacked it!  Tammy sent me such a lovely assortment of things that are really just right up my alley — I feel really spoiled!

First, there was this beautiful skein from Once Upon a Corgi, a new-to-me, Connecticut-based dyer, on her Marie Cutie base, which is 75% Corriedale and 25% nylon (how appropriate is the name given Tammy’s one of the Once Upon a Sock crew?!).  First, I am so excited about the fiber content — I haven’t knit much with Corriedale and the description from the dyer’s site sounds like I’m going to love it: “If a fiber blend was created to withstand the toughest of all wear and tear Corriedale Nylon would be it. Corriedale is a longer staple length fiber giving it a rustic wooly wool feeling and stands up to the toughest of sock wearers.”  “Rustic wooly wool” and “toughest of sock wearers” — music to my ears!  And the color … oh the color.  I love the light sunny yellow coupled with those pops of pink!  I can’t wait to make some sweet, summery socks with this skein!

Even though the swap was about digging down into stash, Tammy actually got this skein for me — so very kind!

That beauty was in and of itself more than enough, but Tammy packed the package with even more goodies!  First, she took note of my interest in trying new fibers and sent me this lovely skein of 100% pima cotton 4-ply from another new-to-me dyer, Nerd Girl Yarns! I love this Ghostbuster-themed colorway — it’s such a fun explosion of color!

I can’t decide if I’ll use this for socks, perhaps holding it with something elastic, as Tammy cleverly suggested, which would be a really fun experiment, or if I’ll pair it with another yarn and maybe make some sort of fun summer top!  I’m leaning toward the latter, just because I love the colors and think they would look awesome in a summer tank, but we’ll see! Given the number of things I’ve got on my needle at the moment, I’ll have a bit of time to decide.

Then there were the other little treats that Tammy snuck in the package. I’ve already mentioned my excitement over the pez dispenser.  As anyone who reads this blog probably knows, I * love * sheep, so that was very exciting!  And then there were some lovely goodies she was kind enough to pick up from the Connecticut Sheep and Wool Festival! There were these adorable stitch markers from Katrinkles — how fitting are the socks?!  I have some of Katrinkles’ Christmas ornaments, but have never treated myself to her stitch markers, so I’m very excited!

And this gorgeous button from Fiber and Mud — I just love it and can’t wait to knit the perfect cardigan that it can be the closure for .. maybe something like a Harvest, where the button could really shine. I love the color and the delicate leaf print!

So big, massive thanks, Tammy!  I can’t believe what a kind and generous package this was — it was so thoughtful and really paid attention to the things I like!  In her post about her package, Tammy mentioned she is a great at figuring out surprises that are coming her way — clearly that sleuthing extends to figuring out what others like too!  I just love it all!  And huge thanks to Kat for organizing the swap — it was such a lot of fun!

I’ll be back in the next day or two hopefully with an exciting post — until then, happy knitting!!

xo K