Yarn Aboard!! Leif Eriksson arrived at my house yesterday afternoon. Ahoy! (or perhaps I should say "Hinga Dinga Durgen"!)

Would you just look at what an incredible job Amanda did putting these boxes together?! It's so pretty, I can't wait to see what's inside.

Ooooh, yaaaaarn. There's some fabulous KnitPicks Dye-Your-Own (love that stuff!) that my pal, Leah, dyed herself in super fun colors that remind me of a parrot's feathers (my mother would love socks made out of this!) and a skein of yarn from Sugar Bunny Boulevard in a lovely pinky, orangey colorway called Evening Sun. Pretty, pretty! She also included what happens to be my husband's favorite chocolate and, get ready, these adorable little magnets made with pictures of me and my boys from my blog.

Thanks so much, Leah! I was so touched when I opened these up, I actually got kinda weepy. (Of course, I am in a rather sensitive state these days with the hormones and all. Heck, I practically tear up at previews for Grey's Anatomy - ugh.) The boys especially loved the magnets. They immediately each took one of themselves and used them to hang up their first pictures they've brought home from school.

a family portrait

Look, S even included the baby! It's up high because "it's far away". Wow, the boy understands perspective - see what four days of school will do? I love that he has his own little S magnet to show it off.

Thanks again Leah and Amanda! And now Leif and I have got some shopping to do to get the box ready for its next journey. Stay tuned for the continuing adventures of the Icelandic yarn explorer!

This looks familiar, now doesn't it?

It's the drill box that I used to send out my sockapal2za socks to Carola. The very same drill box that became one of the boxes for the yarn aboard sock yarn swap! I kicked off one half of Yarn Aboard back in February with the radio box that Carola sent me. Now the swap has come to an end with my receiving that old drill box again, this time filled with goodies from Gracie.

Check out that awesome Chocolate Covered Cherries yarn from Brooklyn Handspun! Yuuuumy! Thanks so much to Gracie for the beautiful yarn and all the little treats too.

And the package arrived just in time, cause in a few hours we're outta here, off to Germany for our annual trip to see the in-laws. I've got a lot of knitting planned - check out the yarn suitcase. (Don't laugh, my other suitcase is half-filled with, you guessed it, legos, as it's the boys' birthday and they'll be needing some pressies.)

For me, it's a few weeks worth of design projects and maybe a little baby sweater knitting here and there. Deadlines, baby - wish me luck!

See you on the flip side in a few days!

Remember this radio box that Carola sent me recently? Well it's on its way to another knitblogger full of socky goodness.

wanna peek at what's inside?
(psst...it's Harvest sock yarn from Sunshine Yarns!)

This was all Amanda's idea. She received the drill box that I sent to Carola with her sockapal2za socks in it in a little swap they did. She was just as tickled by the idea of the drill box carrying yarn as Carola and I were and cooked up this idea to do a sock yarn secret pal thing with each of us sending yarn to our pal in the drill box. After a couple dozen people signed up, it seemed a bit much to ask that that one drill box make 20 trips to varying places around the globe, so I offered up the radio box from Carola for half the group. You gotta check out the map of all the cities the two boxes will be visiting!

where will it go next??

A little bit of cardboard and tape reinforcement from hubby, some padding inside, twine and packing paper outside and the radio box is off!

Icelandic radio box: sending yarn with a smile since January 2006