Let's Talk About Advents

 Not the season of Advent, but yarn related advent calendars. 

Quite a lot of indie dyers, and some commercial ones, offer 'Yarn Advents'. It's a simple idea, you give them  money and sometime in October/November they send you a box with 24 small skeins of wool, wrapped and numbered, so that you can open them up during December. They're generally themed, some come with optional extras like a full skein of co-ordinating yarn to open on Christmas Day or a project bag that fits with the theme.

I've always avoided these in the past because, quite apart from my non-conformist soul shying away from the thought of the self indulgence it represents, I could never think what on earth to do with 24 small balls of wool. I mean, I have left overs from sock knitting that weigh more than that and I'm so at a loss for what to do with them that they sit around in a drawer doing nothing but taking up space.  

But this year I gave in. Not sure why. Possibly because I'm sick of  not allowing myself to buy things, even though I can afford them, possibly because it's been a hard year and I felt I needed cheering up, possibly because I had an idea about what to do with the wool. Who knows?  Anyway I didn't think too much about which one to get because the Giddy Knits one was themed around The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe. No contest.  

It arrived a couple of weeks ago, and here it is. And no I haven't peeked. That's like cheating at patience, it sort of misses the point.

 

I was also tempted by the stitch marker advent offered by Mara at An Caitin Beag (The Little Cat). Bad year or no bad year, however, there was no way I could justify buying this for myself on top of the wool one, but I devised a cunning plan, by which people bought me gift vouchers for ACB for my birthday and I used them to buy the advent. That also came recently

I hadn't really taken on board that they came in a project bag, but they did. And it's a very nice one too. All the little labels on the envelopes are cat themed; they're so cute. I don't normally do cute, but I love these.

Then, for reasons which are to do with knitting gnomes but are far too complicated to go into here, I did an advent swap with a knitter in Germany; 8 small packages plus an extra one for Christmas Day and that arrived last week .

I guess December mornings are going to be busy with all the unwrapping and associated ooohs and aaahs.