Up At Last

Today tastes like bacon, cream cheese, and dill. With lemon drops afterwards.

Got the photos taken and arranged in chronological order. So far, all are up for swappage if anyone's interested. Drop me a line, and I'll track any that get taken or become eligible for a theme swap in the comments.

Currently I'm crocheting irish roses for another ATC swap. I've always liked art that involves words (gee, go figure). For the celtic swap, I've dug out some words relating to roses and translated to Very Bad Irish with an on-line dictionary. I'll write the Irish on the front, and the English on the back as the title of the card. In my head it's cool. We'll see what happens in the cardboard.

When I talk with people who don't do exchanges, one of the frequently asked questions is "Aren't you afraid that after you put in time and effort on your product that you'll get back the equivalent of a smiley face sticker? That you'll swap down, rather than across or up?" And really, it's been my experience that people who do swaps like this (where at least a little interaction is required--you gotta put the sticker on the card, after all) tend to not want to be the crummy one. I may not get THE ONE I would have chosen; I may not get something to my taste (oh, how . . . cute.) but the effort shows. Some people have more time/money/inclination to invest than others, and that's the way it's always going to be. If you go to a pot luck, there will be at least one Martha, and one Roseanne. Maybe I've had a lot of luck, but so far I feel like I've always traded across. It's as if I sent a garter-stitch commercial cashmere yarn whatsit, and received a handspun wool lace whatsit of a smaller size.

Now I need to fire up Excel so I can keep track of what I've signed up for, sent out, received. It's ironic that now that I use e-mail to stay in basic touch, I spoend more time in line at the post office clutching odd-shaped packages for exchanges.