Anyway, I also discovered "swaps" - didn't know exactly what that meant but have since figured it out and promptly signed up for three. The first one was "Swap On A Budget" - $20 budget, you must include one handmade item (not necessarily knit) and one skein of yarn plus whatever "extras" to bring you to the budget. This swap is an impressive feat - and testament to the organizational abilities of the SOAB "founder", Miss Becca, as well as all the supporting players - the moderators. A really fun group of knitters and ultra organized - I think there are over 100 people participating in this swap. I just finished up my swap box and mailed it off on Saturday - here is a picture.
This is a secret swap so I'm not going to post any info about why I put what I put into the box until I know my "spoilee" has received it.The next one is "Starbucks and Yarn Swap" - I actually signed up for this one before SOAB and it's a smaller group, a little less excitement and camraderie but the moderator for my group, Neila, has done a great job keeping us informed and everything organized. I'm in the process of finishing up that swap box - the requirements are one handmade item (since this is a coffee-themed swap the options for handmade items are cup cozies, coasters or a bag), one skein of yarn, one Starbucks item (either a lb of beans, a mug or a gift card) and whatever extras to bring you to the swap budget of $25-$35. This is not a secret swap, so I have actually emailed with my spoiler, Kathie, who is currently an expat in Korea - pretty neat! She even asked for input on the handmade item and posted pictures of it - check out her progress here - isn't it gorgeous?? I feel spoiled already :-) The person I am spoiling is named Joann and I'm about 50% done with my handmade item... still brainstorming some aspects of it, but if all goes as planned I think it will turn out pretty great - I'm excited to try some experimenting to (hopefully) get what I'm visualizing in my brain :-)
The last swap I signed up for is the "Dyed Sock Blank" swap which introduced me to a whole new aspect of knitting - dyeing the yarn yourself. And even more yet - dyeing a sock blank, which if you don't already know is a machine knit rectangle of off-white sock yarn that you hand dye, and then you can knit right from the blank by just unraveling the yarn - cool, huh? The blanks are made with two strands, so I think the point is to knit two socks at once so they will look like an actual pair with the same colors in the same direction. So the point of the swap is to dye your own sock blank from Knit Picks and then send it off to your spoilee for them to enjoy and knit up into socks. Knit Picks also has a tutorial for dyeing as well as free downloadable patterns for Toe-Up Magic Loop Socks - which I am definitely going to need to check out.
My daughter and I used Kool-Aid to dye my first blank and it was fun to do, but the results were not something I would wish on anyone else, so I think I'll be knitting that blank up for a pair of socks for Grandma. A Grandma would appreciate my daughter's choice of colors (green, red and black cherry). I'll post more on that soon...
2 comments:
We're having our SnB swap tomorrow...you should see the huge bag of yarn I'll be taking. And I haven't even started sorting through my needles yet!
You should try one of the swaps on Ravelry - I think you'd have fun, swap some yarn and get to make a project for someone else to take your mind off things :-)
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