Score!!!!

One of the things I'm enjoying about Ravelry (haven't we discussed this already? So go sign up!) is participating in swaps in some of the groups I'm in . So far, I've been in two.

The first was the swap for the Purple Rules! Group. This is a group who openly admits their love of all things purple. Naturally I joined as soon as DF Jill pointed me that way. And wouldn't ya know, when swap partners were assigned, Jill got my name! She was incredibly generous with the stash she presented to me before the Annie Modesitt class a couple of weeks ago:
On the left is a skein of Numma Numma superwash merino sock yarn in color Grape Jam. On the right is a skein of laceweight yarn, color lilac fairy, from handpaintedyarn.com. I have had a difficult time rationing the center during tax season. :) Thank you so much Jill for the lovely yarns and the yummy candy! I'm looking for the perfect sock pattern to show off the Numma Numma, and I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the laceweight yet, but laceweight is a new addition to my stash because I didn't have any before. Good call. :) I know I wasn't the easiest person to shop for. If you travel over to Jill's blog, you can see the package she got from her swap partner in Norway.

The other swap was titled "Guilty Pleasures/Good Karma". The idea was that you swapped "luxury" items with your partner.... more expensive yarn, tools, patterns, etc. that they normally wouldn't buy for themselves (participants filled out a questionnaire with ideas). The Good Karma part came in because to participate you had to pledge to either knit for or donate money to Warm Woolies. So while you were getting something luxurious for yourself, you helped some folks who had little to nothing, in a lot of cases, not even shoes. (Yeah, that kinda puts silly yarn purchases in perspective, doesn't it??)

My partner was Dawn from Washington state. Wow, wow, and wow....I opened the box and unwrapped all this. Then I read the note she had included with it explaining how and why she had picked all these items. She just blew me away with her generosity and with the thought she put into it. The green and purple yarn was dyed especially for me by The Unique Sheep. The one inch stitch gauge was made especially for me. She hand made the beautiful project bag (the picture seriously doesn't do it justice) and the stitch markers (complete with tiny sheep). I had requested a shawl pin as my luxury item and wow, is it beautiful. I was just about in tears as I looked at all of it and thought that someone who had never met me had gone to so much trouble. So thank you Dawn, for your thoughtfulness and generosity. I hope your swap partner treated you as well.

Update on the accounting software: The guy called today at the assigned time. I tried downloading the updates. The sucker worked the first time. Our operating theory is that changes they've made on their end plus updates to Vista made it work. I'm not arguing. I just wish it had happened back in January.