Special delivery!

This past week brought me so much goodness in the mail that I’m almost embarrassed to share everything with you. Where should I begin?

First, I received the January shipment of the Sheepspot Fiber Club and Breed School:

This is Cormo top and I wish you could touch it. Boy 2 has been petting it like a bunny (I make him wash his hands every time). Softness is a very important tactile quality for him, and he gives this fiber an A+. Sasha also sent a delightful upcycled WPI (wraps per inch) tool. I actually do not have one of these and have been wanting one, so the timing could not be better. My colorway (above) is called “December in Ontario.” Caitlin chose the other option, which is called “December in South Beach:”

So far we have chosen different color options 3 out of 4 times. I find that so interesting (we both chose the purple Coopworth last time.) All this lovely fiber reminds me that I don’t have any handspun on the needles right now. I need to consider that. Currently I’ve got socks in progress for the office, the green sweater for home, and also a green fingering weight hat that is a slow lace project (that hasn’t made a blog appearance yet).

The next special delivery is very special indeed – look:

A colleague at work spent last semester in Denmark and brought me back these lovely gifts. She said Denmark was a very yarn-y place, and she thought of me often and wanted to thank me for teaching her to knit! For the record, I don’t think I taught her to knit from square 1 – I just helped her work through knitting socks.

The Christmas tree ornament looks like a spindle and is from the Danish Design Museum (she said they had a whole tree full). That looks like an amazing museum, totally my kind of place. The yarn is… well, what is it? I can’t read Danish! It’s a singles yarn and there are 400 meters in 100 grams, so I’ll call it fingering weight. A close look at the ball band reveals the wool breed: Falklands Merino.

I’ll have to think very carefully how to use this special yarn. Should I use both skeins in one project, or keep them separate? Many delicious hours of anticipation ahead…!

And finally, I received a prize in the mail yesterday. I listen to The Knitting Boutique podcast – it’s a LYS in Baltimore that has a lot of their own yarn lines. (In fact, I think they might sell their own yarn exclusively now and not carry any commercial yarns?) They work with Sweitzer’s Fiber Mill in PA, which astute readers will recall is the place from where I got my greynbow mystery fluff. I entered a contest associated with their podcast and won a skin care kit from Sweitzer’s!

It contains Pumpkin Pie soap (made with oatmeal and pumpkin butter), Pumpkin Butter hand cream (made with goats milk), and Minty Cocoa Lip Balm. I’m not sure there could have been a better selection, as pumpkin pie and chocolate-mint anything are two of my favorite desserts. You can tell I cracked open the lip balm before I took time to take a photo.

This is an embarrassment of riches. I feel so lucky to have these delightful and beautiful things come into my life. This past week was especially bananas in both my work and personal lives, and these missives reminded me to take a breath and focus on the long game.

Now, I’m off to moisterize something… have a great weekend!