Pea Vines and PhilosophyDoll

Last Saturday, the Fraser Valley Knitting Guild organized the first-ever Yarn Harvest yarn crawl in which knitters from all corners of the lower mainland drove in search of yarn. Yarn stores between Abbotsford to UBC hosted packs of knitters and yarn lovers for a full day of shopping and stashing, followed by a dinner altogether to hand out prizes. Since I try to keep somewhat regular working hours, dyeing in the studio during weekdays, it’s rare that I’m in the studio on a Saturday. But for these lovely, effervescent ladies, I made a happy exception. About 15 minutes before doors opened, I checked the studio mail and found the prize purse ballots from the guild (whoops, that was lucky I got them in time!) and this amazing package from one nameless philosophydoll:

Here, I’ll recap the last bit of the wonderful handwritten letter:

I noticed that you said you would have found it easier to work on your latest lace shawl if you’d had stitch markers. Well I immediately got to work. I hope you love them. The bag is made from 100% linen found on an estate in Bologna, Italy. It is at least 80 years old. Enjoy!

Great heartfelt appreciation and thanks goes out to philosophydoll. What an absolute surprise and delight. The bag for the stitch markers features a little leaf motif stitched into it. And the stitch markers themselves are delicate and beautiful. As you can see I am putting them to good use in Anne Hanson‘s more difficult lace pattern, Pea Vines:

If I could have used stitch markers for Anne’s dead-easy Les Abeilles pattern, then I can for sure use them now. Yarn Harvesters might have seen my shawl on the desk as they shopped and browsed. It’s a tangle of greenery for sure and the lace pattern is not that easy to predict. Plus the whole thinking backwards/mirror image thing… makes me crazy sometimes. Anne says it’s worth the effort, so I am persevering. But yes, these stitch markers are definitely helping and they are just lovely to look at. Prettier than any earrings I ever wear! Thank you so much!