27 June 2006

Rainy days and Mondays...

I know, I know. It's Tuesday. And neither rainy days nor Mondays usually get me down. But lately it's been raining ALOT and I'm tired of feeling damp.

I suppose you've noticed that there are pictures of yarn in this post? Well, that yarn was dyed for me by my Dye O Rama Swap buddy...Lucia! She lives in Massachusetts and they've been having alot of rain. She e-mailed me to let me know that my yarn would be a little late because of all the rain - she wasn't able to get outside to dye the yarn (see her blog for details).


It was worth the wait! The colors are rich and deep and soooo beautiful! Blues and teal/dark green, purples...it's beautiful! The yarn is nice and soft. And there's alot of it!

I think I'm going to use the yarn for the Simply Lace socks from the Spring 2006 issue of Interweave Knits.

The pictures don't do the colors justice. It was raining yesterday when I took these pictures, so the light wasn't that great.


Lucia also sent me a jar of pink peppercorns. I've never tried them, in fact, thought I'd never even heard of them. I was looking at the jar one day and it came to me. I grew up (for about 7 years) in Southern California. There are these pepper trees all over the place. They have pink peppercorns growing on them. The reason I didn't think of this right away? Well, I never really believed they were pepper. I thought it was just a name or something, because I'd only ever seen black peppercorns.

So I now have some pink pepper. The label states that the "taste is characterized as delicate and aromatic rather than the traditional pungent "spicy" flavor associated with black and white peppercorns". I can't wait to try them!

That package arrived last Thursday. Friday, I got another package! Here's what it contained:


I won this from a contest that Nancy had (by the way, today is her birthday, so go wish her a happy birthday - her best friend, Maribel created a wonderful tribute post to Nancy, so visit her blog, too!). I didn't originally win the prize. But the woman who did win, didn't respond to Nancy's e-mails about her winnings. So Nancy pulled another name (actually, her son pulled the name) - and it was my name!! This Lopi yarn came from Iceland (read Nancy's blog to learn more about it). The colors are beautiful. The book is awesome. That night, I had to knit a swatch (I felted it Saturday, but don't have a picture of the felted swatch).

Sunday, I knit this bag (I got the pattern from the book). It took me about 10 hours, total, to knit this bag. I think it's so cute. I washed it once last night, but need to wash it another time (it's not fully felted yet).
Last night I cast on for a second bag (because I had more than a skein & a half of the yarn left over and I like this bag so much!). I'm about half-way done with the second bag.

Oh! And if you haven't heard, Cara is having a drawing for lots of awesome prizes. She has a registry at Heifer International. For every $10 you donate, your name gets entered into the drawing once. She has raised $13,467.00 so far! You can donate to the registry til the end of the month (I think, check out her blog for the details).

That's all for today (hopefully someone's still reading my blog!). MAKE it a great day!

7 comments:

Carole Knits said...

I know Lucia and she was really worried about getting your yarn out late. Glad it all worked out.

Lucia said...

I'm so glad the yarn I dyed likes its new home! I'll be watching you knit it with great interest -- since I gave the other skein to Claudia's fundraiser, I have no clue how it will knit up. And I love the stripey Lopi, which I've never seen before (only solids). The reds and pinks are so rich. Thank goodness we have colorful yarn to comfort us on gray days. Here in MA we're having one nice day in the midst of yet another string of rainy ones. Enough, already, with the constant rain!

The Little (Knitting) Hedgehog said...

Your yarn from Lucia is lovely! Those blues and purples are great!

Anonymous said...

Wow, she does some fabulous colors! You're going to be making something really special with that yarn. We're all watching you now.

Nancy Wetmore-Mathews said...

Wow those blues are amazing. Lucia did a fantastic job.

The lopi knit up quite beautifully too!

f. pea said...

Nice dye job! You are up to your ears in beautiful yarn this week!

Anonymous said...

That yarn is gorgeous!