Today, the second part of the deal came to fruition. Jason was sending a box of stuff home to me (more on that later) and so included the stuff from Julie in the massive box. It wasn't exactly hand to hand in the technical sense, but he did receive it directly from Julie's in laws, handled it himself and then passed it directly to me via the post. I greatly appreciated the trouble he's gone to for me.
As always Julie excelled.
She sent me some beautiful blue sock yarn, dyed herself. I'm a big fan of Julie's dyeing skills. I'll be posting some socks I made from her yarn later in the week.And knowing I'm keen to try my hand(s) at spinning, she sent me what looks to be a great book. If I'm not mistaken, this is the very book Julie used to learn to spin. That's recommendation enough for me.
You never know, one day Julie and I might be able to hand each other stuff in person. In the meantime, this was a pretty cool way to eliminate some of the distance created by land masses and oceans. Thank you, Julie!
The box of stuff Jason sent was, I'm slightly ashamed to admit, 6.5kg (or 14.3lbs) of yarn and books from Knitpicks. Not all of it was mine. I swear. In fact, I was fairly restrained! Everything I bought has a purpose.
Knitpicks doesn't ship internationally. It's a right pain in the arse because I love their needles and might well buy their yarn if they'd actually realise that not shipping yarn internationally, when so many knitters around the world know of them, is pretty short sighted on their part. Still, it's their choice and well, we can find ways around it.
You know when you go through the whole clicking buttons process on the net and it's all a bit of a frenzy and later you can't quite recall what you chose? That's the experience i had when I opened the box. I saw a bit of a theme, once I had all my yarn together. Watch.
I bought this - Shadow lace weight yarn in Basalt. This will most likely be an Adamas Shawl, because I was so inpsired by the one Donna-Lee made in Shadow recently.
Gloss Sock yarn in Woodland Sage. These will be socks of some kind for me.
And Essential Tweed sock yarn in Lumberjack (Sean chose this for socks for himself). 
Clearly I was enamoured of earth tones the day I chose my yarn. A reflection of the world around me, perhaps, since it was some weeks ago and deep in the bleakness of winter. I love them.
Also, I couldn't resist adding to my Elizabeth Zimmerman collection. I love these books so much.
And that's more or less me up to date. Not a lot else to report around here. I've got some knitting stuff to talk about but I'll save that for another post.
And that's more or less me up to date. Not a lot else to report around here. I've got some knitting stuff to talk about but I'll save that for another post.Bells
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