Doesn't get any better than a vacation and an FO

Got a couple of things to show all of you.

First thing is the receipt of my Knitter's Virtual Vacation Swap package. I had a virtual vacation in North Carolina! My vacation planner was Stephanie and she put together an excellent package. Check out the goodies!

So in detail, here's the list clockwise from top left: Seagrove pottery from Jake's Pottery, some raw cane sugar, two tins of flavored chocolates (ginger tea flavored and jasmine green tea flavored chocolates, both very delicious), two skeins of Liisu Yarns in the colourway "Espresso Bean" in gorgeous coffee browns, a jar of smokey mountain apple butter, a moon pie (which I've actually never had until now, note the empty package above, as it was already consumed by the time I got around to getting a photo), some crackers with cheese and peanut butter and a beatiful postcard from North Carolina.

Here's some close up of the sugar, apple butter and the yummy yarn.

Then I saved the best close up for last. The pottery from Jake's Pottery in Seagrove, NC. From my research online, Seagrove, NC is the birthplace of traditional NC pottery and there are over 100 potteries in the Seagrove area. That would be a beautiful and fun place to visit and see all the handmade pottery. Look at the glazing on this piece...it's absolutely BEAUTIFUL!





There was a copy of a handwritten printout from Jake's Pottery, describing the pottery itself and how this potter came to be. Apparently the name "Jake" was the name of the original owner's pet macaw. I loved knowing a little about the place where this piece came from.

Thank you so much Stephanie! You did a marvelous job with the swap

package and I hope to be able to visit North Carolina in person someday :)


I also have an FO to post on. Remember the socks I've been working on for samples for one of my gals in my knitting group who dyes and sells her yarn over at A Swell Yarn Shop? Well here they are in completion. Ta da!





Can you believe this is sock pair #2 for me already?

I had to take a quickie photo of it in the car today after work, as I was enroute to Angi's house to drop these off, as she's off to sell her yarn at the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival in Canby, OR this weekend. I used the Thuja sock pattern from Knitty and these were knit on US #6 and knit up quick. Thank goodness they did knit quick, because I did procrastinate and was still knitting this morning, and through lunch and snuck a few knits here and there at my desk at work (hee hee thankfully it was a little slow this afternoon). Then I whipped up the kitchener stitch on the toe of the last sock and weaved in all the ends, all in time to drop these off on my way home from work as I see her getting ready for her trip down to the festival. I think she'll have no problem selling all of them, as her yarns are all so beautiful. I so wish I can go down there this weekend, but I don't think it's gonna work out. I won't cross it off my list just yet, but if I can, I'll certainly be down there, as I've yet to check out a fiber festival and really want to!

I can't remember if I'd already mentioned the colourway for this yarn in my previous posts, but just in case that I haven't, it's called 'Army Boy'. I also have the 'Army Girl' colourway in my own stash (colours are the same as army boy, but replace the blue with a hot pink). This was the XXL Duet sock yarn, so there was a LOT of yarn left. See how much is left?

I love the whole contrasting heel/toe in a different colour yarn. I hope to learn the Magic Loop method of knitting socks so I can learn to do the afterthought heel and learn another sock knitting technique. Oh yeah. speaking of which, I got my Lucky Lurker Club sock yarn package (hand delivered by Angi at knit night, which I thought was pretty cool) last week and had not taken pictures of it yet. Gotta do that and show all of you how beautiful this yarn is!

OK, I guess that's enough gushing about yarn and swap packages for now.