Blogiversary presents

I am a bad blogger. I do not deserve presents for yesterday's blogiversary (yeah, a whole year since I mashed that "create blog" button). But because there is clearly no natural justice in the world, I got presents anyway, ha! Up yours, karma!

You see, my Ravelry Rubbernecker Swap package arrived from the wonderful Melyssa aka Gwlana! Actually, it arrived at the end of last week, but I've had my mother staying with me so I had no chance at all to do more than have a quick look, squeal with delight, then put it away until my daughterly duties were done. Tonight I finally got to spread it all out and play. Here it all is:

The yarn is something I'm terribly excited about: Knitpicks Bare, which is sock yarn for dyeing, and loads of Kool Aid to dye it with! I have been dying (groan) to try this for years but was scuppered by the lack of both readily available undyed yarn and the Kool Aid itself - neither one impossible, but not easy, to come by. I am going to have a lot of fun with this. I have a few colourway ideas in mind already... Just one thing, being hit by the incredibly sweet smell from these little packets even unopened, do people really drink this stuff?

There was other cool stuff too! A little hand-carded batt of royal blue wool with sari silk and angelina, which doesn't show up as prettily in this photo as it really looks (glitz never does) but should be lovely to spin. There are also some gorgeous sparkly stitchmarkers, again not photographing that well, but they are lovely.  I am dead impressed.

Also included were two issues of a magazine from the 1950's called "The Workbasket", one from 1951 and the other from 1958. Utterly fascinating. I am even more touched that Melyssa sent these from the collections of her mother and grandmother - that's so sweet.

Last but not least, the edibles! Yummy chocolate, dried cranberries (which I think will become muffins, if I can find a good recipe) and some very interesting green tea mints. Since I love green tea, I can't wait to break into these!

Thank you so much Melyssa, it's all fantastic!

In other news, the wedding planning is starting to move faster, now we are past the year-to-go date. We now have a photographer, and we have contacted these people, these people and these people for silly things to do at the reception...  Our guests don't get to sit down!