Lovely Things

So.  Let's take a little closer look at that package from a good friend.

 Yarn and a good book.  It seems so simple when you just glance.  And I suppose it is.  But it is kind of special. It comes from far away.  My friend picked it up on her travels, and a visit to Loop, but you can get it too from its online home!

 Shilasdair - Flag Iris  a yarn from the island of Skye dyed in an ancient way with natural materials, local to the maker.

 Madder and Mushroom and Cloud, each spun on and dyed so far from here and yet, here they are, sitting on my table so far from Skye.  Isn't the modern world wonderful?  We get to see and be transported there with a click of a button, going places our forefathers couldn't imagine going to, by a means that wasn't in their dreams at all.

I'm not a big traveler.  That was Brian's forte, but ever since I was a very young woman, I wanted to go to the islands of the North Sea.  Shetland and Orkney, the islands of Faeroe and Iceland.  Greenland even.  These places have always been in my dreams, my if I could.  And maybe some day I might. These are the places where if I went, I might never come home from.

There will be something very special from this yarn.  A shawl to show the simple natural beauty.


And then a book of good yarns.  I had not heard of this recently published book, Knitting Yarns, Writers on Knitting.  Some of your favourite authors are in here.

 Barbara Kingsolver, Ann Patchett, Sue Grafton and a host of others, including a name very familiar to many knitters, Ann Shayne.  Perfect  shorts for my brain, which cannot seem to concentrate or large long books right now.

And to cap it all off, a lovely little card from an artist with a special and treasured message inside, just for me.  

All these are the perfect thing to have with a cup of tea.  And that is what I am going to go do right now.  Have a nice cup of tea, and to pet these lovely things and have a quiet moment before yet another busy day.  I don't always get that before work, so I really treasure it when it happens.  Then work and off to see some babies and my knitting peeps tonite. A busy day to be sure, but one I really really love.