Circumvention in the New Year

I am on a very well deserved yarn diet.

Hubby and I are trying to clear our debt from Operation Shop last year. Therefore I have to find a way to use the yarn I have without bringing more yarn into my house that was purchased by me (isn't that a nice disclaimer?).

This is not an easy feat. I love yarn and I love to shop and I spend a majority of my Saturday mornings knitting in a very nice LYS.

So I depend on the mercy of my friends that will swap with me, or gift me with yarn ( MUST post the stuff a friend brought me from Argentina ), or the occasional "we have something extra go to the yarn shop darling" from Hubby (that's how I ended up with some Sockotta sock yarn and one skein of Noro Silk Garden last September- woo hoo).

Other times a nice random moment which prompts a random comment on a blog I happen to enjoy means a long distance swap is in the works.

This is what I'm sending to her:

That is two skeins of Karen at Royale Hare's Hand Painted Superwash Merino Wool in the Mt Tam Moss colorway. One skein is 140 yards of variegated loveliness. A bonus is it's local to me so her shops don't carry it.

I am making my first pair of socks out of the Sonoma Coast Ice Plant color way in the same yarn and having a blast with it - when not suffering from second sock syndrome.

So what am I getting in return? A yarn that I have never seen in person (as in I haven't touched any of it) and don't think I can even get here, in a WAY LOUD colorway that I just absolutely love and the current owner doesn't.

I'm thinking win-win and I'll post a pic and more info when it arrives.

On other knitting news...

I have just added the following tomes to my knitting library.

• Debbie Stoller's Son of S&B and S&B Nation (those mice are too cute)
• EZ Knitting Without Tears (turns out that two color hat I'm making is right)
• The Ultimate Knitter's Book of Yarn
• Joelle Hoverson's Last Minute Knitted Gifts - LOVE the little drawstring bag on the cover.
  
• The Best of Interweave Knits - those wrist warmers are mine

In keeping with the yarn diet is actually a general craft diet, but the books were purchased through an incentive program at work and didn't cost me a dime.