On Friday, I came home from work to find a pile of packages at the door.  Among them, were these lovely goodies:

A big pile of knitting goodness, which I had ordered from three different sources (in three separate months, no less) which all arrived on the same day.  Furthermore, they all arrived on a cold, grey April day in which snow flurries drifted out my window all day.  Christmas in April?  Most certainly.

I placed an order months ago for five skeins of Plucky Sweater in the scrumptious colour called Kissin’ Valentino.  It was a pre-order, sold as a kit for the sweater pattern Neon, by Joji Locatelli.   This means that you order the yarn before it’s been dyed, and then have to wait for it to arrive on your doorstep.  In this case, that took even longer than anticipated since the yarn was held up first by Customs, and then by the Easter holiday.  I had wavered quite a bit about between red and green for this cardigan, and even once I settled on red, there were a number of different reds available.  Red is always hard to capture properly in a photo, so when you order it from a photo on your computer screen, it can be a gamble.  Well, this gamble paid off.  The colour is smashing:

This yarn is destined for Neon, a beautiful, lacy, summer cardigan:

copyright Joji

I also received an order of completely lovely Skein yarn.  I ordered this from Loop, in London, who as always were very helpful.  This is Merino Silk Sport, hand dyed 50% Merino, 50% silk in two colourways, Fig and Outlaw:

Isn’t it gorgeous?  I have a great project lined up for this yarn, but as there’s a story behind it, I will keep it a secret for now.  You will have to check back later to see it knit up.  The colours are spectacular, very rich and yet soft at the same time, like an old painting.

I also received a copy of Amy Herzog’s book, Knit to Flatter.  I am really looking forward to reading it; I have always admired Amy’s blog.  Perhaps I will post a review of it soon.  In the meantime, I’ve got lots of knitting lined up……