Ever had one of those kind of days? I'm feeling rather under the gun to get this done for framing, so it will actually be a finished item for our anniversary, but today I swear that for every stitch I made, I had to take out two. Argh!

And, to my unhappy surprise, when my Silkweaver grab bag finally arrived (I'm sure our mailman has been bypassing our house, and I actually found this in my bike shed - is that weird or what?) it was a huge 'ho hum' experience. Last year's grab bag was so great that I had been kicking myself for not ordering two - when I went back online to order another (to heck with the shipping costs!), they were already sold out. So I've been waiting with bated breath for this packet to arrive. Only to be, well, not disappointed, but certainly ... bored. I got two small pieces of identical Linda (sadly, I have a couple pieces of this same color already), a teeny piece of evenweave that is really so small I don't know what I'll use it for, and another piece of evenweave (the biggest in the bag, yet barely what I'd call medium sized) in white. White? Too small for charity stitching, which is the only time I use white. For the linens, I got a nice red and mulberry, small pieces but enough to do an ornament or something small on, a piece of ivory and a piece of natural. Yawn. Did anyone else get such a dreary, dull assortment of almost-too-small-for-anything pieces, or did I just have bad luck?

Luckily, the big piece of 40 ct linen I splurged on (unbeknownst to Niek, so don't tell!) was as beautiful and unusual as it looked on their website! Not sure what this will become, but I just fell in love with this swatch when I saw it. It's a color I would love to live in if that makes any sense!