Birthday Swap Goodies

A fellow Knitter-friend of mine, J, and I both have the pleasure of celebrating birthdays in the month of August. A while back we decided that it would be rather fun to do a birthday swap of sorts where we would knit each other a pair of socks and include a skein of yarn and other various goodies. For whatever reason, I got a bit excited and packed up the stuff that I was sending to her before I took photos, but if you're curious, you can see the contents of her package here. I did, however, take a few photos of the socks that I knit for her. These socks were knit with Sunshine Yarns soft sock in the Green with Envy colorway in my own pattern that I named Devil's Snare.
Here feet are a tad bigger than mine so the lace is a bit baggy here. I am pleased to tell you that they fit her just fine :)

On to my goodies!
A fun journal where I can jot down dye/pattern ideas, a fun sticker, and a copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales.
A bit of Florida complete with shells from a local beach.
A sock blank for me to play around with and a skein of Enchanted Knoll Superwash merino/nylon in the Dragon colorway. If you aren't familiar with these sock blanks, you dye them up and let them dry and then knit your socks as you unravel it. I'm not too keen on the idea of knitting with kinky yarn (lets keep it clean here folks!) so I may unravel, soak and stretch, let it dry and then knit with it. We'll see.
Here's a more accurate photo of my new skein of yarn.
Some Burt's Bees goodies.And a Harry Potter bag filled with goodies: handmade stitch markers, Muggle Soap, a bit of Eucalan wash, Gryffindor colored Tic Tacs, and of course, Bertie Bott's Every Flavored Beans. A word to the wise regarding the beans: the vomit flavored beans are accurate. Trust me on this! I still haven't forgiven my husband. Supposedly, he was trying to give me a different flavor that "sort of looks like" the vomit flavored beans and ended up giving me the uh, wrong bean by mistake. A likely story!
Here's a closer view of the stitch markers.

This is a rather fun little cup! It turns color when hot liquid is added and provides you with a secret message.
And I saved my socks for last. For all the socks I have knit, I have never had one knitted for me. These were knit in the Zephyr pattern I believe in a skein that J hand dyed for me :)
Here's a close up of the lace.

Yeah!

While I'm on the subject of things that I have acquired from others, I thought I would include a few photos of a fun little tote bag from Bea Binney. I love the color of this tote and it even has a lovely Autumn-y interior lining!

She also makes handy little drawstring bags which this one, as you can see, has already been put to use.
I also recently ordered a skein of her hand dyed with the intent of using it for a Holiday Gift. I'm undecided about that now that I have it in my hot little hands. We'll see! It even came with a little stitch marker :)
That's it for today! Must get knitting :)