SWAP!! and Progress Notes

One of my wonderful readers (and, now, a friend), Barbara, offered me a swap. She had some Bernat Bulky yarn she wanted to get out of her stash, and I have a LOT of knitting books, so we exchanged boxes last week. As it turned out, we were both having birthdays. I really had no idea how much of this yarn she actually had, but when Ricardo opened the box, he said, "You'd better send her another book."

Her box contained 19 skeins of yarn, plus two adorable dishcloths and an UFO she had started with the yarn. There are 10 skeins of taupe, and several of black, white, and variegated. I feel guilty, as I really came out ahead of this deal.

I also donated some knitted items to a charity last week, and the woman there asked me if I was a knitter. She then asked me to haul away a small bag of yarns stored in their garage, left over from a prayer shawl project they had done. Really, I tried to discourage her--I told her she could make smaller items with these odd balls--but she wasn't interested. No one had to twist my arm, as you can imagine. The best thing was several partial skeins of Patons Lacette, which will make good trim, and some slubby eyelash stuff, which will go into purses somehow.

Finally, some variety! I was getting sorely tired of my huge stash of worsted weight and thread. Yes, there are many projects planned with ALL my yarn, but I've been dying to pick out a pattern and just MAKE something easy, without a lot of experimentation. And I wanted something for trims and embellishments.

Mostly, I am getting tired of PINK. From my shopping around for used yarns, I've found that in these parts, the most popular yarn is pink acrylic worsted weight. All kinds of pink--baby yarns in mainly pink, worsted in shell pink, hot pink, salmon pink, rose pink, dusty pink, heather pink, pink pink--pink, pink and more pink. And I have a cone of a nice wool blend, sportweight--in pink. And I have four big balls of thread--in pink. Sheesh. Who would have thought? Curiously, I have almost no black and little red. (I don't think I ever bought pink yarn in my life.)

I'm making an afghan using all the blues and browns, which is really coming along nicely, although the thought of sewing it all together is somewhat daunting. And soon I will be posting a slipper sock pattern (in pink!), and another purse.

So, a big thank you to Barbara. I hope you like the knitting books. My oldest grandson--he of the skateboards, bandanas, and shirts with skulls everywhere (ICK)--has asked me to make him some kind of poncho/serape thingy, although his mother keeps saying, "Don't make him that." LOL I told her, hey, it worked for Clint Eastwood. I think he's gonna find one of those under the Christmas tree this year--something bulky in black and taupe. I'm also making balaclava helmets for the men for when the snow flies again. Wish they wore more pink.

I'm a book person, and people have been giving them to me as gifts for years. I still have some really great stuff up for grabs. A Louisa Harding book, a Debbie Bliss Kids, some large-size pattern books, and lots and lots of knt and crochet toy patterns. I need some cotton. Just, please, no pink.

Hugs to all.