One of the things I love about blogging are the surprises I get in my email.

Sometimes it is a reader with a question or way of looking at something that I hadn’t considered, sometimes, it is someone wishing me well with my craft, and sometimes, it is one of those “wow, is this my life?” moments.

At the end of June I got an email that definitely falls into that last category. I was doing a regular check of my email and cleaning out whatever cyber clutter had accrued, when I came across an email from someone named Emma.

She explained that she working with LoveCrochet.com, and she offered to send some Paintbox yarn to my house so that I could give it a whirl.

I was so delighted at the chance to try the yarn, I said yes, and promptly forgot to send her my address. It took me a few minutes to realize my oversight, but I quickly sent a second reply, and yesterday, the answer to my replies arrived in the mailbox:

I was very curious to see what was inside, but I had been on my way out the door to run an errand. This particular yarn adventure would have to wait.

Fortunately traffic was relatively light and in almost no time, I was at home, ready to see what was in the bag. After carefully cutting the package open, I found myself facet-to-face with a mini rainbow of cotton yarn, and no idea what to do with it:

Eventually, after an evening of falling into Ravelry and other crochet internet resources, I got an idea of what I could do with the yarn and began to try it out, but there are still a few bugs to work out before I share my discoveries.

In the meantime, when I was not road testing the new yarn, I worked on my front burner scrap yarn crochet ripple afghan:

As for crochet, I love my craft whether it is with new yarn, or an assortment of yarn bits that I have been saving for years, and I will continue to make my way, one stitch at a time.