A Color Swap package......

.....arrived at my house today, it was from my secret spoiler Nicola aka Clasheen from Ireland. My colour of choice for this swap was wheat/pale gold. I was totally blown away when I opened the package. Nicola is extremely talented at felting and she kindly made me the most stunning felted vessel which was inspired by a stone wall ~

it's absolutely beautiful. I can't stop petting it, the inside is as smooth as a peach.

Also included was a cake of beautiful hand dyed silk yarn along with 2 skeins of a beautiful blend of merino and silk fibre in yummy shades of gold and chocolate brown. It's as soft as a cloud.

Next up are the treasures I received ~ a hand blown glass button full of beautifully interesting patterns and colours, a large stone bead (bottom left) which I absolutely love ~ I'll make this into a pendant. The button at the back is really large and will be perfect for using on a hat or a felted bag.

Here's a pic of the entire package. Nicola was such a generous spoiler, I received Irish tea and Coffee, Baileys truffles, and lemon and Ginger tea which could not have arrived at a more appropriate time as I have an awful cold gifted to me by my dear Son. The package really made my day and I feel well and truly spoilt.


We are still unpacking boxes here, I thought this
would be a great opportunity to properly sort out my stash. I've taken over the smallest bedroom as my craft area (which believe me is very tiny). I'm trying to find a home for everything but I'm lacking storage ~ I seem to be unable to find certain things that I'm looking for but can find the things I don't want/need at the moment. I've decided I have far too much yarn, at the old place I had plenty of storage in my craft room and the yarn was never on show so this is the first time in ages that I have seen it all in one place at once. I need to go through it all, decide what I'm going to knit and use it up! I'm not putting myself on a yarn diet or anything that extreme.

I haven't knit much at all over the past month or so with everything that's been happening, I cast on Idlewood yesterday but decided to use Naturewool (from my stash, me being a good girl and all that). I could not get gauge at all with this yarn, the stated gauge is 15 sts to 4'', the closest I can get and still produce a fabric I like is 20 sts to 4'' so I have been crunching the numbers and practically rewriting the pattern. I've not got too far with it yet, maybe 8 rows in.

On the cooking front I decided to treat myself to Around my French Table by Dorie Greenspan and have been trying out the soup recipes. Every one so far has been really tasty, especially the sweetcorn soup and the leek and potato was much nicer than the recipe I had been using. I can't wait to start trying out the chicken recipes next.