Swatch It

Back in December, I was perusing the discussion boards on Ravelry and found a post asking for swatchers for J. Knits, a hand-dyed yarn company in New Hampshire. 'EARN FREE YARN!' caught my attention--what better way for an unemployed person to earn yarn than to knit for it? I'm always willing to test-drive some new stuff so I sent off an email letting them know of my interest and waited for a reply (while they waited out the power outages in New England).

Long story short, they accepted me as a swatcher of their lace yarn and I returned from the library yesterday to find an envelope of colorful mini-skeins on my doorstep. Just look at those fun colors! The yarn is 100% alpaca and is so soft to the touch. I can't wait to get started! I have the choice of knitting plain stockinette or doing lace patterns, as long as the swatches conform to their size requests and gauge.

I'm going to have some fun this weekend trying out different stitch patterns from the Barbara Walker books I picked up yesterday. I was thinking about dabbling in some lace designs this year, and this seems like a good place to start. I'll keep y'all posted on my progress as I discover my inner Anne Hanson. ;-)