Write Letters! * Play Ball!

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So as you baseball fans know, yesterday saw Opening Day for the baseball season. And as you Domesticat fans know, yesterday also saw the start of the Knitterly Letter Swap.

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And here's my first letter recieved--from Domesticat herself!! YAY! It was both exciting and strange to find the fancy, sealed envelope in the mailbox, one because of the beautiful stationery found amidst bills and ugly flyers, but strange too because when I first saw the handwriting on the envelope, I thought it was a letter from a long-ago, now estranged, friend. Domesticat's handwriting is just like the handwriting of that friend I once knew, and so it was an unusual moment of thinking that she (lost friend) was suddenly contacting me. I was quite relieved, in fact, to see it was Domesticat, and then I was just plain enthusiastic to read my first letter in the great Knitterly Letter Swap. See the Rowan yarn strand she included? Only knitters would understand the pleasure of receiving snippets of yarn....So thanks Domesticat!

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Other wonders showing up in the mail have included Megan's fragrant, delicious soap (yum!) which I'm too busy smelling as it sits on my desk rather than using it yet. (I don't want it's yumminess to be gone too soon--)
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And next wonder of the etsy world--this print by Black Apple. It sits above my crafting table, spurring me on to make the world--through my mind and then through my hands--a better place. My crafting table is where I banish bad thoughts, and dream the world a better, more beautiful one through fibre, textiles, a string, a needle, etc... I always feel quite calm and settled when I sit down here to practice some of my new sewing skills or fondle different fabrics, or just sit and gaze at the beauty of my knitting needles and yarns knowing that great possibilities reside in them all.

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And in me.

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So for a girl who tends towards the pessimistic, I look up at the Black Apple girl (for whom I am finding a frame this weekend!), and am reminded that crafting is a way for me to be optimistic, and that in this crafting corner of my life, I firmly can and do believe that we are leaving our marks on the world in a very good way for handmade goods are powerful in their ability to connect to people in what increasingly feels like an alienating, crazed, consumerist world.

But hey, I don't need to tell you people that! The Yarn Harlot's experiences in NY is all the evidence we need (as if we needed more, but I'm just sayin')...

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And so create I will...
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Now, whatever might I be swatching for?????