Last year I tried my hand at making t-shirt yarn. You know the one where you cut old t-shirts into strips and pull these into thick "yarn"? I cut 4 t-shirts and an old tricot shirt of mine and worked these into yarn. They "marinated" in my stash for a while, until a few weeks back I decided to see if I could crochet little baskets of them.

I took part in the All in One Color swap in the Ravelry Ten dollar swap group this month, and was through and through spoiled! My spoiler was Nicola from Wisconsin, and she had really though about the package - it was so great! Take a look:

First of all there was a skein of Lamb's Pride bulky wool and mohair yarn. It's so soft and I love the shade of red! But that was only the start. There were all kinds of candy which I really like like the Twix, Baby Ruths and Reese's peanut hearts - and Hershey's Kisses, which I got to taste for the first time!

I took part in another swap before Christmas, the Finnish Christmas swap, Jouluvaihto.

My partner received her present and liked it, and I like mine too! I waited for a long time before unpacking them, as I wanted to wait until Christmas (well, almost, as I was away over actual Christmas so I opened them on the 21st).

Yesterday was the day - we finally had the big yearly "knit day"! Last year was the first time I organized it... but as I was ill, I was not able to participate! This year I actually made it to the event :)

From 1 pm (well, I was there half past 11!) to 10 pm we knitted, knitted and knitted! Chatted and knitted, swapped yarn and knitted, were interviewed for television and knitted, ate and knitted... and some crocheted, too!

After my last successful swap I decided to join a few other swaps too, as it is so much fun making and receiving presents!

The Keeping it simple swap is group with different kinds of swaps going on, and this time it was supposed to be all from your stash. Love the idea!

This swap present is from Alison whose Ravelry nick I don't know (yet), all the way from Scotland!

The Third German Ravelry Meet is currently underway - I was able to go yesterday with four other ladies from our knitting group in Essen. As Frechen is only an hours drive from here, it wasn't too big an effort.

We arrived too early and drank a coffee in a cafe nearby, then headed to the Meet. It was already crowded, especially around the yarn stands, so I quickly ran through the area to get an overview, and then sat down with a friend to knit.

I'm trying to knit down my stash, but sometimes new yarn is just absolutely necessary. Like this month, when I went to Lankamaailma with my Mum and my sister - the first visit there for all three of us.

Needless to say, we stayed for more than an hour and looked (and fondled) everything over and over again! My Mum and sister also got nice yarns, but this is my haul, let me give you the grand tour!