Cheer Up, Emo Knitter.

This was one of those days: Too damned long for being a short week, too many times that I felt abandoned to the phones at work, and just too tired in general for a single half hour of hand-holding through using Outlook, let alone three back to back. I pulled up to the curb at home, largely convinced that I should set to making myself a margarita before I stopped to feed the cats, and then I found it.

Today was Yarn Day!

Two packages of yarn: One from my No Sheep Swap buddy, and the other from my Yarn of the Month club.
I knew the latter was coming, as Paypal told me I'd been charged for my subscription, but that doesn't make me less happy about it.

Firstly: Thanks, o Yarn Swap Pal! I've always been curious about Debbie Bliss yarns, but never really put my hands on them -- and a cotton/silk/viscose blend was definitely a good choice for me. Now, to figure out what I want to do with the 110-ish yards of Cathay. Hmmm....

Perhaps something with the Celtic knot cable pattern I've been looking at, posted by the Girl from Auntie. It seems like the yarn would have nice stitch definition for that sort of thing! I was also gifted with some recycled sari silk yarn that looks suspiciously like the yarn I buy from Stephanie at RecycledSilk.com -- and that's a good call, too, since I already know how to work with the stuff and enjoy the results. :)

I shall have to post results of what I knit. Hee hee hee. :D

So, Yarn o' the Month. I love getting the little samples of yarn, and I actually dug out my June samples so I could mark each bag with the month I received them: June brought me Lana Knits' hemp, Cascade's Luna, Nashua's June and Maraja by Ornaghi Filati -- only two producers that I'm familiar with, Cascade and Nashua. I haven't knit up the samples into swatches yet: I've been lazy, and mostly content to pull out the little bags and admire the colors. They're nice, they're just not something that I know what to do with, precisely.
July's offerings seem to fire my imagination a little more. It's probably because all the little packets are shades of red or orange or gold, and I respond so much better to those shades: I also recognize three of this month's manufacturers, familiar with Gedifra (Korella), Louet (Kidlin) and Rowan (Damask). I haven't heard of Louisa Harding, but the colors inherent in her Cinnabar rather tickle me, and she's got one hell of a blend going. Viscose/Cotton/Acrylic/Silk/Linen/Polyamide/Acetate? That's a mouthful.
Still, the Kidlin seems to be the one that speaks to me most in the July haul: I look at it, and I can only think of Knitty's cactus flower from Fall last year. It's tempting.

Anyway! I've been burning through my current projects before I can even write about them: Ball 1 of the pink zebra Tonalita has turned into a single pair of Fetching mitts: I'm a little sad that I won't have the option to wear them for another couple months. (Thank you, heat wave.)

Of course, this still leaves the last 100 yards of Tonalita up in the air: I can't decide whether I should make more mitts, a cabled scarf or a hat. Do I even have enough for a hat? Hm.

The Manos yarn is untouched as of yet, but I went and decided this weekend was an excellent time to knit up a tam in black viscose -- It was a whim, there was yarn begging to be used in my stash, and I've gotten to the point that I can quickly freestyle hats. They make me happy.

Again, I need to find my darned digital camera.

So, in general: Thank you, people that conspired to send me yarn and (however unintentionally) cheer me out of a rotten day.

You gave me a smile, and that's all I can ask of you. :)