Spoiled from the Land Down Under!

I received my ISE6 swap package yesterday and was totally blown away! Christine from Austalia (make sure you check out her cool etsy shop!) was my amazing spoiler and has become a great new friend! She kept in touch with me all throughout the swap and after she mailed off the package, started dropping clues here and there, which made it quite fun. Christine also really paid attention to my blog and learned a lot about me, which is evident in the goodies she sent.

Matt came home from the post office yesterday and immediately said "Honey... why is someone in another country sending you yarn??" LOL, silly men... I tore in to the box right away and found this "Save a Life" tote inside the box, filled with all these beautifully wrapped goodies...

The tote is from Little Lizzy Lou and is a blue ribbon girl, showing awareness for Colon Cancer (quick Mom update... she just finished up her last round of the chemo pill and is going in for a cat scan, then to meet with her doctor this week!)!!! I just love Little Lizzy and was so touched when I found out the story behind the bag!

When I tore in to all the pretty packages, I just kept finding more and more meaningful things...

Christine sent not one, but two beautious scarves, a skein of Silk Merino 8ply from The Knittery (what to make, what to make??!!), a cute doggy tape measure, a pet towel from the RSPCA (which, in its compressed form, Sophie thinks is a cool new toy), 2 wonderful buttons/pins (Shut Down Puppy Mills & Adopt Shelter Pets - love them!), a sock blocker keychain with yarn from The Unique Sheep, chocolate coated espresso beans from Zentveld's Coffee (Christine says the beans are grown not far from her house) and the coolest handmade doggy theme notecards ever! I absolutely love everything and it means so much to me that Christine took the time to find dog & rescue related items, as well as colon cancer. Thank you Christine - I love it all! I had so much fun with this swap and can't wait for ISE7!

Now on to some more pics... first up, the gorgeous Silk Merino yarn....

Beautious #1 (I still can't believe I got two!).... the Wavy scarf in a gorgeous, vibrant red! I almost can't wait for fall to wear this...

The second is Christine's own take on the Midwest Moonlight scarf and it is absolutely stunning! She used another of The Knittery's yarns, the Merino Chubby Sock (I just might have to order me some of this yarn soon... shhh, don't tell Matt!) in a colorway that is just so me, called Purple Night... this scarf is so stunning I'm actually sitting here with it drapped around my neck now!


My kids were being nosey helped with the photo shoot today...



After the scarf pics were taken, I took the opportunity to work on that elusive good shot of all 4 kids and managed a few that I do love (for those of you who always ask how - well, 1) have treats in your hand and 2) use a digital camera as it will require several hundred shots to narrow it down to a few good ones)...


These evil things were also watching... but I made sure to keep my distance and will be even more sure to send Matt out there with some hornet spray tonight... ick!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend... I need to get back to procrastinating packing...

FO Friday!

Its been a long time since I've had a FO Friday! I finished up my ISE6 pal's scarf last night and sent it North this morning with some extra treats.

Pattern: Cross Stich Scarf from 101 Designer One-Skein Wonders

Yarn: Patons SWS, Natural Earth Colorway, 2 skeins

Needles: Size 10 1/2, Clover bamboo

Details: I heart this pattern & scarf! It is a quick knit, although as most of you know, I'm the queen of multi-tasking so instead of taking me just a few nights, it took a few weeks because I kept setting it aside for other things. I will make more of these for gifts (family & friends, that's your cue to put in your birthday & holiday requests... its so much easier when I know what you want). I adore the way the SWS knit up and used 2 full skeins, which resulted in a scarf just over 75" long (unstretched!)... making for a great wrapping/stylish scarf! I sure hope my ISE pal likes it half as much as I do!

Enjoy the rest of your TGIF! With the weekend (and hopefully some extra time) upon us, why don't you hop on over and check out Vickie Howell's CRL2 podcast... well, actually you're going to have to wait until Thursday, May 22 for the launch, but you can bookmark it now!

Pasting Sophie 101...

Yes folks, while recovering at home (while I am doing better today than the past fews days, I am still not well enough for work) I decided to finally update my blog header & button by pasting in Miss Sophie's sweet face. This took some time - esp with the button.... you see, the original was done with a single photo of the 3 dogs (Zeus, Lola & Tut) and since I've yet to snap a great pic of all 4, I opted to just cut & paste Sophie in. What do you think? You can grab the new button here or from my sidebar - please just be kind and save it to your own server, thanks!

While home sick, I also learned that sign ups for International Scarf Exchange 6 are now open! I decided to dive into this swap for the spring edition! I also noticed that sign ups for the next round of the yummy coffee exchange open March 20th - I can't wait for that one! Speaking of fun stuff, a few weeks ago Chan asked me about designing a button for those of us who multitask while at work... well, I thought she just wanted a button, but this has since turned in to a quickly growing Ravelry group! Won't you come on over and play with us? You can also grab the button below and add it to your blog as well!

I'm heading back to the couch now... Zeus has been cuddling with the blankie Grammy made him and I think I'm going to go find a blankie of my own!