Secret swapping

Tomorrow it’s Sinterklaas in the Netherlands – the day where the Dutch kids get presents, instead of (or on top of?) Christmas Eve/Day. So perhaps I should have waited with opening of one of the two swap packages I picked up at the post office yesterday? Anyway, getting to pick up 2 packages at once was amazing – even more so because I didn’t really know whether the other package I was expecting had already arrived, I was just so cocky as to ask the girl behind the counter if she would mind to look whether there was another package for me. The other package (the MYB swap package) I will be blogging about tomorrow, because I think these two packages deserve their very own post each!

Anyway, the surprise package was the one from the Amiras Secret Swap. We had already gotten our send-to partner in the beginning of October, and I didn’t know who would send a package to me. If I had been more of a detective I could have narrowed the choice of senders down to two or three, I think, as more and more senders were reveiled at the end of November. But great was my surprise when I discovered that my package had been sent from Chicago!

The box was stuffed to the edge with neatly wrapped presents.

It’s like Christmas Eve – really, it is! All those presents, wrapped so wonderfully, and knowing that they contain only things to spoil me.. Edible as well as non-edible :o) – Please note the amazing knitted cable gift paper, soooo appropriate for a swap like this!

Well, unpacking I went. Again, just like Christmas Eve! I was sitting on the floor, smiling, unpacking very slowly and enjoying it big time. Trying not to tear too much at the knitted gift paper, I sure want to re-use this! The unwrapping revealed all these goodies:

I’ll list it all here:

• Two kinds of tea; an earl grey black tea (the round jar), and a herbal cranberry tea.
• Ginger Man cookies, it seems like it is the Christmas Edition: crispy sweet cookies with a hint of ginger and sprinkled with red sugar. They are so yummie, I had to hold myself back not to eat them all at once!
• Little chocolates (in the stripey wrappers); milk & white chocolate with what seems like pieces of candy cane (the peppermint ones) in it. Also, SO tasty!
• Two patterns I had wished for: Talamh (a cardigan, which I had gotten hold of already, but I still appreciate it big time!) and Riding to Avalon, a wonderful sweater with hoodie.
• A foldable bag (the green one in the upper left corner) from the Chicago Public Library; sooo handy. I have needed this, always stuffing plastic bags in my backpack to make sure I didn’t have to buy a new one if I went grocery shopping on a whim.
• A square note book, with a knitted blue fair-isle pattern on it – gorgeous! This will have to be my knitting note book from now on :o)
• A pencil case, also with the fair-isle pattern on it. And inside that, lovely shell buttons, “Knitted by” labels for FOs, and some notions I have never seen before: Project Talkers and Yarn Talkers. On the Yarn Talkers you can write whatever you need to remember about the yarn, and then you stick it in the ball of yarn. The Project Talkers are like open stitch markers, with a label hanging on them, saying “small”, “center”, “knit”, “sleeve” etc. This will all come in handy!
• And, last but not least, the yarn: 2 skeins of Cascade 220 Heathers in the most amazing blue-green colorway, of which I not yet know the name – I will have to check that. And, a 100g skein of Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock (Mill End), in a one-of-the-kind colorway, two shades of pink. I think it must be the self-striping kind, looking at the Lorna’s Laces variants on Ravelry, but I’m not sure – that will have to show when I get it knit up!

Lindsay spoiled me big time. And I mean spoiled – this has been one of the most amazing swap packages ever, it is so much more than I ever could have wished for or dreamt of!

Together with the MYB swap from Karen it was the most wonderful Friday evening on my own ever.