After about a year of taking a break from swaps, I recently participated in two fun swaps. The first swap I had fun with was the Words and Bookmark 
swap organized by Zoe. The idea was to swap books written before the 1940's that had a passage which references knitting. Included with the book we were to make a bookmark and mark the knitting passage with it. Penny was my pal. I sent her Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, and she sent me this lovely package. There's a skein of lovely yarn from LavenderSheep, and not one but two books: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Little Women. She also knit two bookmarks for the books and sent along some yummy popcorn! Thank you Penny!
I also participated in the Fiberflix Vacation swap that I organized through 
the Ravelry group. The idea here was to swap a vacation themed DVD, and a pattern and yarn that could be brought on vacation. My upstream pal Beth did a fantastic job on my package. She sent me two movies that I haven't seen but have wanted to very much: The Holiday and A Good Year. She also included a lovely smelling candle, yummy gummy candy, chocolates, a journal, two patterns (a throat warmer and Christmas socks), and a gorgeous skein of yarn from Bluestocking Yarns. Bluestocking yarn site is worth a visit. The colorways are based on literature. Very cool. Beth did a great job!
In crafting news, I completed spinning up the 12 ounces of black/gray shetland wool roving that I got from Lambtown in Dixon last summer. The color in the picture is quite a bit lighter than the actual color. I spun it as a worsted weight three ply just like the Moorit shetland wool I worked on a couple of months ago. I'm thinking of pairing them for a sweater project. I ended up with about 700 yards of worsted weight. I'm in love with it! I'm thinking working with this handspun may be the first thing to knit this fall.
Oh, I would have loved the knitting/book swap - what a cool idea! I am looking forward to coming up with a good project to knit with my handspun, though I need more time... a sweater from the two yarns that you can wear a lot would be really special. have you thought about the EPS percentage system and doing a colorwork yoke?
Posted by: Birdsong | June 01, 2008 at 02:18 PM
Excellent! There seems to be a dearth of swaps out there, but you hit the jackpot. . .
Posted by: Kim | June 02, 2008 at 05:16 AM
How timely, I just bought some gorgeous Lavendersheep yarn in Portland! Nice swaps!
Posted by: Elspeth | June 02, 2008 at 09:26 AM
What great swaps! I love the color of that Lavender Sheep yarn.
Posted by: Chris | June 02, 2008 at 01:11 PM
And by this fall, you mean now? I had to pull my sweaters out of storage. Nice spinning!
And really nice swap packages! I finally got to see A Good Year.
Posted by: Carrie K | June 02, 2008 at 02:12 PM
Swaps always bring smiles with them. I should get into more swaps myself. What kind of sweater will you make with your handspun?
Posted by: Pioggia | June 02, 2008 at 09:08 PM
Nice swap swag :) I love the look of your handspun!
Posted by: mrspao | June 02, 2008 at 11:10 PM
Great swap goodies! You're always having good luck in your swaps.
Happy Birthday to RM!!!
Posted by: Laura | June 03, 2008 at 06:50 AM
Those are some nice packages! :o) Beautiful spinning!
Posted by: JessaLu | June 04, 2008 at 09:23 AM