Goodies

My definition of 'goodies' is "things I may not need but that sure are GOOD." Tuesday I got some goodies when I met up with Laura on her quick trip to the west side. Last October when I helped her at OFFF, she gave me this luscious 4 oz. braid of MBT (50% superwash merino/25% bamboo/24% tussah silk) in her colorway Tranquil Seas:

Since then Laura tried a different brand of dye and was dismayed to find that it bleeds color in a most unsatisfactory way. She was unloading the resulting colorways at a discount since they are not up to her usual standards, so I asked for a second braid of Tranquil Seas MBT. I figured I could spin singles from both and ply them together:

Laura had been to Columbia Fiber and Ashland Bay (I didn't know they're so close!) picking up supplies, and had to show me her unplanned acquisition – camel down! I expected it to be short and best suited for blending, and therefore easy to resist. But this stuff holds together very nicely and I'll be able to spin it just fine, so four ounces of that came home with me, too! (I have a special spin-and-knit project in mind for this luxury fiber, but first I need to do a little sleuthing.)

On top of that, Laura brought me a bunch of staples with which to make edible goodies – flour, wheat germ, whole wheat spaghetti, and more. She's going gluten-free, and we are the blessed beneficiaries of her pantry-cleaning.

Today some goodies of a different variety arrived in the mail:

Mary Ann mentioned these on her blog, and oh, how I wanted to see them! I had no idea Mary Engelbreit published a magazine for awhile; I just love ME's aesthetic and look for her page-a-day calendar every year. Mary Ann was kind enough to send me these issues to peruse; I just know doing so will be a treat!

That's it for today from . . .