Craftsy-tastic

Guess what came in the mail before I skedaddled off on vacation?

I received a lovely, surprise free gift from Craftsy full of goodies, just for being a user! They sent a few skeins of yarn, a tape measure, a couple of buttons, and a gorgeous set of extra long Lantern Moon needles. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I think Craftsy is a really excellent site. I sell my designs there and really enjoy Craftsy classes. They also sell yarn, and while I've never purchased yarn from them I often receive e-mails about deals and specials. And the yarn they sent me is some really interesting stuff!

This Fibranatura Oak is a lovely DK-weight Merino/silk/linen blend that has a great soft-with-some-crispness feel to it. I've been wanting to try some more linen yarns so this will be fun to knit up.

This Ironstone Yarns Flake Cotton is a gorgeous slubby DK-weight cotton in the perfect shade of bright blue. I think this will be a summery scarf.

This skein of Fiesta Yarns La Boheme is... interesting. It's a rayon/mohair/wool/nylon blend that has the look of a novelty yarn but with a lot of natural fiber content. I bet it would make a really fabulous ruffly scarf. Since I'm not (personally) a fan of mohair or such warm tones, I'd like to send this skein along to someone who would love it more. If you'd like it, leave me a comment saying so and I'll randomly choose a winner and ship it out when I return next week!

Speaking of Craftsy classes, the other day I watched the entirety of Miriam Felton's Lace Shawl Design class while I recovered from a back spasm and darned some holey socks:

Those 5 holes took me HOURS to darn. Darning isn't difficult work, it's just a bit fiddly and time consuming. You basically just weave a little patch over your hole with a tapestry needle and spare yarn. This video has a good explanation of the technique and Knitting Daily has some good illustrations. Cookie A has an interesting knit-over-the-hole repair technique. For the area in the top right of the photo I tried duplicate stitch instead of darning since it wasn't exactly a hole yet, just a thin area, and I didn't like it as much. It was more annoying to work (to me) and I don't like how the entire repair is visible from the outside. For the other thin areas/smaller holes, most of the messiness of the repair is on the inside of the sock (unless you do the darning on the right side, like this blogger did for some reason I don't understand).

Anywho, I did all that darning while watching the lace design class and now I'm totally motivated and inspired to work on a lace shawl design... after I get back from vacation. :) Don't forget to leave a comment if you'd like to win the Fiesta yarn! Have you used Craftsy? What is your favorite Craftsy class?

(FYI, Craftsy did not send me items in return for a review or a blog post. I was just a random winner and all thoughts/opinions on Craftsy expressed here were not solicited.)