My Swapetition Package Arrives

Today, I got my Swapetition package today from my "secret gifter". I was very excited! The box was a lot larger than I was anticipating, and all of the cats were super interested in it. I had to wait a good 30 minutes before I opened it, as I had just gotten home from work and I had to take care of a few things around the house first. It was an agonizing 30 minutes.

And then, when I opened it? OMG, everytime I opened up a new piece of the box, I kept saying "OMG, OMG, OMG...." I might have SQUEE'd several times over..... Everything in the box was amazing.  There were times, I was astounded at how "psychic" some of her choices were as they were absolutely and utterly perfect.

Here's Anpu checking out the box.

And I have to say, my swap partner wins this Swapetition, hands down. And here's why:

1) PRESENTATION. Her swap package was packaged amazingly well. Imagine my surprise when I opened up the box, and there was a HUGE PRESENT box inside it.  Her theme, "Winter is Coming" with all of the snowflakes, and she kept to the whole theme the entire way through!

(And, can I just say...SHE MADE THIS GIANT GIFT BOX. At first, I thought it was a store bought box, but when I opened it, I realized that she had made it herself. She took the fabric and lined a box with it. Then took the ribbon and matched it up *PERFECTLY* around the box.  As a crafter, this is like extra extra bonus credit. +1000 points!)

For "scale", Sammy is over 10 lbs and over 2 feet long.


She wrote this really cute poem.

Everything was thoughtfully wrapped in coordinating / matching gift bags/boxes. It was like opening up a multitude of gifts.

(I forgot to take a photo before I unwrapped everything, but here you can see all the wrappings!)

2) CONSISTENT THEME: She kept to the "Winter is Coming" theme quite nicely. Everything was about keeping warm & cozy. There were snowflakes everywhere.

3) AMAZING STALK PROWESS VIA AWESOME SWAP ITEMS THAT VERGES ON PSYCHIC ABILITIES:

3A) She gave me an EXPERIENCE. I love tea, but instead of just giving me TEA, she gave me an entire experience and a story to go with it. She went to visit the only tea plantation in the whole United States (I didn't know there was one!)

She took some pretty damn fine photos, mounted them on cards, and told me a little bit about each photo. She wrote that she wasn't a very good photographer, but I beg to differ! I love photography and the stories behind each photo are just an amazingly nice touch! (Not to mention the effort to do all of that!) So, now, when I drink this tea, I know where it comes from, who grew it, and how it got to me.

She sent me a keepsake from the plantation. (And because I live in California requiring that you bring your own bags to stores, this will get a lot of use!)

And she sent me a WHOLE LOTTA TEA!

She sent me both loose leaf and pre-bagged tea.

3B) Perfect little touches. She added a few little things here and there that made this more than just gifts. It shows some forethought!

   

This cute little book gives you a few tidbits about tea And there was the tea-based lip balm & lotion! (And seriously, today, because it was so cold, I was thinking of getting myself some more lip balm because the air was so dry -- PSYCHIC!

Sammy was super curious about the tea mugs. And here's another PSYCHIC moment -- someone took my tea mug at work yesterday, so now, I have a replacement, which I'm going to lock down with chain & key!

And so, cute, a tea bag holder and a sugar spoon. I LOVE the sugar spoon because it has a treble clef at the end, and I'm a musician, so it's a perfect gift! If you have tea bags and a tea cup, you need a tea bag holder and sugar spoon!

3C)  CUTE KNITTED GIFTS in keeping with the theme. In my FAVOURITE COLOUR of all time -- RED And, she thoughtfully included a note with ever single knitted item with the pattern name and designer.

Obviously, there was the tea-cup cozy in red and snowflake fair isle. (And, I'm not sure if that's Paula's real last name, but it'd be cool, if it were!)

A tea cup discloth that was in the silver gift bag, It's so soft!

And, I would have NEVER thought of even making these, but they are perfect for taking tea with me for when I go places. (I love the box they came in!)

A wonderful bookmark with cabling (I LOVE cables). This is going into the next book I read.

And this awesome neck warmer! It's wonderfully WARM and red! And in another psychic moment, today, as I was walking home in the cold, I was considering starting some more cowls/scarves!

 (I might have immediately put this on myself, because it was too soft NOT to wear...)

And here's ANOTHER PSYCHIC moment.....She got me this yarn, and apologized for it because it had PINK in it. But, I had JUST bought this yarn from my LYS and was thinking about ordering another skein. I loved the colors (despite the pink) and had started a project with it. I wanted another skein to do more colorwork projects.

So, in conclusion, to my wonderful swap partner, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. This was a most amazing swap gift I have ever had the honor to receive. You've set the bar for any other swap I might do in the future. You rock. You deserve to win this Swapetition.

Swapetition: Project Bags -- One for Her. One for Me.

I've never participated in a "swap" before, so this experience is completely new to me. One of the things I decided to make for my swap recipient are project bags. Every knitter can always use more (or at least I can).  Plus one of her children knits as well, so I also thought to include a project bag for her and a little something else for her other child.

Because making project (or ditty) bags is fairly easy, I decided to make some for myself as well. The kittens have been extremely curious about my yarn and my WIPs, but not about the bags. After finding that they had dragged one of my waste yarn balls all over the house (and around the dining room table and chairs several times over) that anything fiber related needed to be in a project bag.

I dove through my fabric stash and found some suitable items, but nothing that really was my swap recipient. JoAnn's was having a 60% off sale on their printed fabics, and I managed to find something that seems to fit her.  Then I went somewhat "hog wild" and ended up making about a dozen (or more) project bags. I had a fat quarter of each fabric, which was enough to make 2-3 bags.

Without going into too many spoilers of what I made for my swap recipient, here are the fabrics I used to make the project bags.

Here's one ditty bag that I made for a friend. I used it as the wrapping for her birthday gift.

Swapetition: Stitch Markers

This year, I'm taking part in the Savvy Girls' "Swapetition". A swap is like a Secret Santa gifting circle where all participants are given a name to whom they give a package of gifts (for under $30). The "competition" portion of "swapetition" means that there are prizes to those who give the best gifts. This involves a bit of stalking the other person via Ravelry, blogs, and other places to find out what best things to give to your recipient.

Because the Savvy Girls is (technically) a knitting podcast, one of the rules is that you must include a handmade gift that you made (of any given craft). Luckily, for my recipient, I'm somewhat proficient in several different types of crafts.

One of the things I have created for my swap recipient are some stitch markers. In my stalking of her, she mentions in one of her Ravelry posts that she always loses her stitch markers and wanted to get some pretty ones. So, using some of the beading stash (and bought some pretty glass on sale), I made her markers that I like using (that I learned from Cat Bordhi).

They include letters (i.e. A, B, C) in order to denote potential differences in lace or cable patterns. I hvae found them very useful in the past.

And of course, I took the time to make myself some stitch markers as well. :-)