I thought I was going to run out of the Lana Grossa baby alpaca for these so I'd bought another ball of it on Thurs (and 4 balls of the same in pink to make Fetchings for me and a Meret hat.)
But there's nearly a ball of the green left so I'm making her a neckwarmer using the same pattern (Esther by Knits By Mama)that I used for the bookmark swap, 
only making it twice as wide.
The Itsy-bitsy swap group (on Ravelry) makes small swap items- a bookmark, washcloth, mug cosy etc. The idea is to use up bits from your stash and make something small so that the postage - even overseas- is minimal. Some of us have felt that swaps have become too costly and this is a good way of having fun without starving our kids.
A few others used the same pattern and just changing the yarn has such an impact on the design. I used a sock wool by Rico (a German company) called Superba and I might have used 10m in total, leaving plenty on the ball to make a pair of socks.
I enjoyed knitting the lacy pattern which looks a bit like horseshoes so this might get used quite a lot.
The football was quite exciting today: Chelsea were beaten by Wigan (o_O! what were the odds on that??), Villa were beaten by Blackburn (which is good as Sunderland have been drawn against Villa in the League cup, so we might stand a chance after all) and Newcastle beat Ipswich 4-0. The tie was extra special as the late Sir Bobby Robson had managed both clubs and it was the first time that they had met since his death. The whole match was shown live on BBC2- including the music played/sung in his honour, and all the Magpies are happy that their team is top of the Championship and played really well. The Tractor boys were a bit fed up though!
Sunderland play Wolves tomorrow and I hope we do as well.
