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!

No Mommy, I Did Not Poop in Your Flowers

Happy Dogs on Thursday! This will be a quick post today... for those of you who only visit on doggy days, please scroll back a couple posts for a report on the NH Sheep & Wool festival!

The kids have been enjoying the nice weather lately...

Teutul {as always, more pics when you click linked names} caught trying to poop in Mommy's unweeded flowers stopping to smell the tulips, then doing his best "No, No... please don't drag me inside..."

Zeus zipping around outside and then all pooped out inside. You might notice the XXL size dog bed and how he's using it like a pillow as opposed to putting his whole body on the bed... that's my goofball!

Sophie stopping to smell everything... and on the hunt for anything to chase (birds, moths, ants, flies, squirrels...)...

For some reason Lola must've been a little camera shy this week, but here she is posing hanging with Mommy and a repost of her Royal Highness after her bath a couple weeks ago...

Purple Passion Voodoo

As mentioned yesterday, I received my Spring Coffee Swap package from the wonderful Criquette - check it out!

These lovely wrapped packages...

Turned in to all this...

It is always cool to have someone you know spoil you (but don't get me wrong, making new friends is cool too) and Katie definitely shows how well she knows me... she put together this vibrant "Purple Passion" themed package after all! Inside the box I found goodies, goodies and... more goodies!

There were yummy treats ~ Voodoo Blend coffee (love the name - can't wait to try!), a Starbucks mocha dark chocolate bar and Starbucks caffee mocha truffles. mmmm

There were even yum-yums for my kids from one of their most favorite places, Three Dog Bakery ~ Lick 'n Crunch cookies and their most favorite Beagle Bagles! Teutul and Zeus were quite excited that the nice lady thought of them... as were my girls, but they were inside drooling through the door during the photo shoot.

There were cute accessories ~ coffee theme napkins, the cutest "My Name is No-No, Bad Dog... What's Yours?" post-it notes and 2 unique mix CDs that Katie made for the drive to work (so cool!)....

There was yarn.... not one, not two, but three skiens.... Dream in Color Classy (oooh... how I heart this squishy, yummy yarn), Cotton Classic and Four Seasons Cotton.

There was the handmade part of the swap... Kate had stalked me on Ravelry looked into my Ravelry queue and saw that I had Calorimetry listed... then, on & off her needles - in a most gorgeous handpainted yarn - it went! I absolutely adore it, however if you read my post yesterday, you know that I'm sad to report that it is too big (I'll spare you from my ranting about a pattern revision again). humpf I will experiment with it and see if I can use it for a neckscarf or maybe fold it somehow (right now it fits my entire head - I can even button it under my chin and do my best grandma impression). Any suggestions?

Isn't it gorgeous? And as I said, Katie knows me well... check out the awesome button (I had trouble getting the camera to focus but its a shiny silver with a rhinestone in the middle and oh so awesome!)...

Thank you Katie aka Criquette! The package was truly awesome and I adore the "purple passion" theme!

When I was photoing last night, I noticed some more purple passion...

Now hold on to your ooohhs and aaahhhs and pretty tulips.... remember how I told you that I DO. NOT. WEED.? Here's the un-zoomed in proof...

Sheep and Yarn and Alpaca and SNOW?

I spent Mother's Day at the NH Sheep & Wool fesitval with Joanne and a couple of blogless girls, Cheryl & Marlene. What an excellent day for fiber frolicing - the weather was perfect, not too hot, not too cold!

While none of us were looking for spinning related items, we did happen upon some beautiful wheels, including this beauty (click for a 2nd view)...

Look at that wood work... and the matching chair too boot! The pictures hardly do it justice.

Of course there was a lot of other stuff to buy... including yarn! I had gone with the attitude that if it wasn't something I really loved or unusual, I wasn't going to buy it... I'm at the point where my credit card company could see a $1000 yarn store purchase in Hong Kong and never question if the charge was legit or not in my stash where I don't need to just buy yarn for the sake of buying yarn. So I ended up walking away with just 3 skeins...

From left to right, that is a 3.5 ounce skein of hand painted alapca from Sallie's Fen Alpacas... a skein of Seacoast Handpainted Llama/Wool in the colorway Colorado and... a skein of Seacoast Handpainted Mohair/Wool in the colorway Pink Patch. Both of the Seacoast yarns were marked down to a steal and the alpaca was just one of those that I couldn't leave behind! I'm not totally sure what they are destined for just yet... possibly mitts for me, maybe a baby something with the pink patch... maybe a Calorimetry, although I just received my Spring Coffee Swap package and my awesome pal Criquette made one for me .... its gorgeous, but after a quick try on in the office bathroom, sadly its too large... BUT, that got me to searching on Ravelry for input on the sizing (seems its too wide for most everyone - you'd think by now they'd have publised a revision!) and it looks like less stitches, less repeats and maybe even smaller needles are the way to go...

My only other purchases for the day were a delicious buffalo cheese steak and some apple crisp... and this sweater pattern...

Both Joanne & I were ooohing and ahhing over the sample and then realized the vendor was wearing another version. Its gorgeous... and the only sewing in the entire thing are the buttons!

Now I'll leave you with a montage of cutesy animal photos because you know there were plenty...

This is the sheep impression of my Lola & Sophie...

There were lots of cute sheep...

There were sleeping sheep... and smiling sheep...

There were fluffy alpaca...

And alpaca with cute hair cuts...

Curious alpaca...

and the cutest little angora goats!

There was even this...

Yes, you non-New Englanders... that is left over snow!!!!!!!!

Oh and as for the coffee swap package, I picked it up on my way to work and did bring it inside for fear of meltable goodies inside (I was right!) and snapped a quick camera phone pick before tearing in to the beautifully wrapped goodies... I'll post more about the package & real pics tomorrow!

I Scream, You Scream...

... we all scream for ice cream!

While we had some unseasonably warm, summer-like temps last week (until the rain & cold came), I decided to treat the kids to some doggy ice cream. Sophie {more new pics if you click their linked names} enjoyed her first taste. And no, she shouldn't have it on the couch, but well...

Lola did one of her best "can I have a treat please?" poses for Mommy...

Zeus found the coveted sun spot in the living room... then later decided that the "baby size" (Sophie's) Double Action chew bone was much more fun to chomp on then his jumbo size...

Teutul was waiting for his treat before Mommy abandons him for the day to go to that wretched place leaves for work...

Yappy Doggy Thursday... with not much to say, I left the photos do the talking today...

Spring Flingin ~ Week 6

Well, would you look at that... I just noticed that I won the Week 3-4 prize for the Spring Fling Coffee Swap, which was one of Mary's awesome rice pack! Woo hoo! I just might even let my honey use one (he's only had 1 practice race day so far and he's already been whining complaining about a sore neck), since I just got a cute doggy set from Mary... hmmm, I'll have to think more about that. Its a little ironic that I won Mary's prize, as guess who I had the pleasure of spoiling in this swap?!?! If you guessed Mary, you're right! Visit her blog to see just how much fun I had spoiling her! I had a great time putting together her package, especially given the circumstances with pets in her life lately (I think I was meant to spoil her in this swap for that very reason alone)... and I just had to make sure to pack the handpainted mug extra, extra well given that she had a mug-mishap with her last coffee swap package...

Okay, I've containted my excitement (no, I'm not jumping up and down in my office screaming "I won, I won..." but I might've squealed a little and got some strange looks) and now on to this week's topic...

We'll go free form this week - Post about your WIPs, post about your package, post about the weather where you are - just be sure to include that the post is for the Spring Fling Weekly Topic somewhere inside it when you tell us it's there! I'd love to hear how folks are enjoying the goodies they received, if they have, or how much fun you had shopping for your pal!

Since I posted about some WIP's yesterday and I just mentioned the package I sent to Mary above, why don't I show you what arrived in my mailbox today? Its the latest book from Vickie Howell, cutely titled Knit Aid... and its autographed! Yup, I preordered mine thru Vickie direct and it came signed "Happy Knitting on the go! xo, Vickie" I haven't had a chance to really poke through it yet, but I can tell you its the perfect size to toss in your knitting bag and it is spiral bound, making for easy usage. In flipping thru quickly, I see lots of great illustrations. Find yourself out knitting somewhere thinking "man, how exactly do I do that duplicate stitch?" ... this would be the book to have in your bag!

As for the weather, its been a much nicer start to the week than our cold and rainy weekend. High 70's and sunny yesterday & today... rain coming in for Friday, but they say our weekend will be nice... it better be, as I'm heading off to the NH Sheep & Wool with Joanne, blogless Cheryl and blogless Marlene!