Hi everyone! Well... I've had my partner's package all ready to mail out for 2 days now, but Tuesday (the day I was planning to mail) a pipe in my bathroom broke and flooded my apartment. Flooded the bathroom (seeped through to the neighbors bathroom), half my bedroom, half my closet, half to 2/3 of my living room. Most of my belongings are outside under a tarp while my apartment is being dried out. Anyhow... I did find the package amongst all the "get everything out of the path of water!" mess, and I think everything's fine, but I'm still dealing with the mess and haven't made it to the post office. Hopefully I will get there tomorrow, but it's kinda chaotic right now.

Thanks for the links So far the sites I found things on are Japan based, but at least it gives an idea of stuff I like. That allthingsforsale site looks great, but by the time I started looking at their items, I was tired from browsing the other sites.

I'm going to go check all our stores around town sometime this week just to see what's out there now. This is so fun!

*thinking, thinking, thinking*.... I've never participated in a hoopla before. I will think & agonize over this and make a decision by 29th.

Calabaza: you could also try sending out "Hey, if you're still interested, I just opened the Bento swap for sign-ups" email to those that posted on the topic discussion forum. I received an email like that before from a swap organizer, and I really appreciated it as I would have missed it otherwise, since I'm not always checking the swap list.

And *are* there any good "bento" online stores in USA? I know there used to be one, in San Francisco I think, but for some reason they closed their online store. They were always sold out of what I wanted anyhow, but they had great prices & selection. I browsed online earlier but the best site I found was actually in Japan. I'm going to browse a couple oriental stores around town to see if they maybe started carrying Bento items... it's been a few years since I checked.

One would think, being a "Sister City" to a city in Japan, and having a Japanese Student program at one of our local colleges, that there'd be some sort of bento culture around. But when I was asking around 2 yrs ago, the largest & oldest oriental market in town said "Bento? What's that?"

Yaay! I just signed up.

Has anybody had it happen where you sign up to be a swap angel, but the person you're being an angel for drops out? I was assigned as an angel, but the person I was creating for never replied back to any messages I sent. So I made items the best I could, and contacted the organizer. Who also had never heard back from the person needing an angel. The organizer told me she'd sent another email and get back to me, and I never heard from her again either. It's been a large number of months now... I never did send, because I was waiting to hear back on a few questions.

jexxican: thanks for the tip And no, I've not tried stitching with it yet. It's actually being sent as part of a craft swap. The 2nd half of the wool I spun out yesterday, not quite as carefully so there were a few slightly thicker bits, and I plied it this morning... plying didn't ruin the colors as I thought it would. I only know the fiber is wool: no idea what kind of sheep, as we just all snagged a length of roving that the instructor had without asking what kind.

I think this post solved my issue... though I'll have to try it later. I only had trouble with this happening when my spindle got close to being full, but it's still frustrating.

I've decided this is best used for a rustic embroidery. I did not ply the yarn because the color twist is so delicate, I felt plying would muddy it up. So I just set it as-is. This is kool-aid dyed using grape, cherry, orange, lemonaid, and lime. In an Arts & Sciences craft night we played with kool-aid dye, and I think every one of us dyed our own portion of roving in "multi color" using lines of each color to see how they turned out. Essentially, 5 of us created similar "rainbow" rovings... because we just didn't trust that ours wouldn't turn out so much cooler than everyone else's. LOL.





I'm so happy with how this turned out. And it still smells like kool-aid  


On another note: if you get used to spinning very fine, is it very hard to get back into spinning "larger/thicker"? This is 35 wraps per inch.

I just finished spinning this today,  and set it. It's not plied because I love the delicate twists of color, and I didn't want to risk losing it. I think it will be great for embroidery. Oh: mordant = vinegar, dye = Kool Aid (Grape, Lemonaid, Orange, Lime, Cherry). Done via microwave.