Goodies in the Mail

So, you may or may not have noticed the Phat Fiber Sample Box blog listed over on the right, in the blog list. But it's there for a reason. I added it because I thought it was just the coolest darn thing I'd seen in a long time.

You know all those lovely hand dyed yarns you see on Etsy? And how about those hand spun yarns on Etsy and various other websites? Or maybe you've seen someone selling knitting tools and toys that they make themselves? And who hasn't seen patterns for sale by the indy designers? Then there is the fiber - oh the fiber . . . I want to buy the fiber from the person who gets it off the animal's back and processes it or maybe from the next person who has bought it after it's been processed and then dyes it or adds glitz. But how do I know which person selling fiber has something that I can actually spin? (Especially considering how little spinning experience I have.)

This, my friends is the answer!!! The Phat Fiber Sample Box from Phat Fibers. The nice lady who started this business, Jessie, contacted lots of independent vendors of various goodies and convinced them to send her samples. She takes these samples and divies them out into boxes which she then sells thru her Phat Fiber Etsy Shop which also has other goodies!

Once a month, these boxes go on sale in the shop and they contain the most wondrous goodies! In this pic you see some lovely lace weight yarn, two mini hanks of hand spun, some hand dyed sock yarn and a couple hanks of worsted yarn. These aren't full skeins, just enough for me to knit some little thing and see if I like the yarn. See that pink one from Aurora Fiber Arts? I'm either ordering some of that or some of the Sneaky Pig (pink, white, brown in a bag).

Then there is the fiber! It's gorgeous and soft and squishy and wonderful. There is wool, alpaca, silk, tencel and several mixes. Some of it is dyed and some is natural. Some of it is direct from the farm - see that bag with the purple/brown - that's from Moonwood Farms and if I can spin that, I WILL have more. Think I'd also like to order some of the Plum Crazy Ranch fiber - on the left in the long bag with the pink card cuz it's the softest thing I've ever touched. (See the little bag of dyed locks with a chocolate in it? Yum.)

And then there is the other stuff that shows up in the box - not yarn and not fiber and not even all knitting/spinning stuff, but still great stuff and fun to get! I got a knitting pattern, a magazine full of patterns, a diz that someone made, a stitch marker, a lovely yarn notecard, some goats milk soap and best of all a big, fat, fattening hunk of fudge! Other people got a knitting comic book, other knitting patterns, wood buttons, more stitch markers, shawl pins, hand creams, key chains, all sorts of lovely things made by hand by someone with an idea and a dream.

I'm thrilled with my 'try it before you buy it box' and I have plans to purchase more fibery stuff from some of these vendors. Now if only one of them would come teach me to spin better and maybe faster . . . .