St Brigid Progress, Ireland

I'm making good progress on St. Brigid. The back (draped on the back of the chair) is done and front is more than half way done. The back has six pattern repeats, and I just finished the fourth one on the front, so time to think about neckline pretty soon.

Completely unrelated. A few weeks ago I received a private message on Ravelry from a knitter in Ireland. She saw 20 skeins of WEBS store brand, Valley Yarns Stockbridge, in my stash and was wondering if I could sell it to her. WEBS doesn't ship internationally. I knitted Spencer Day in this yarn and rather liked it, but to help a fellow knitter I was ready to sacrifice. I figured I could always replenish at next Stitches, as if I wouldn't do that already. I emailed her back, told her I'd sell her at retail plus shipping. She replied back quickly and said if shipping rate was reasonable we had a deal. (first alarm). So I went on to check the shipping rates. The big carriers, UPS, Fedex, DHL, all wanted $140+ for 5lbs, $80 worth of yarn. USPS was the most reasonable, at $45. That's insane. Someone on Ravelry mentioned if we were lucky we might be able to find a traveler to carry the yarn in luggage. Low and behold, I actually found another knitter on Ravelry who was going to Ireland from Maryland in couple of weeks. It would cost me about $10 to send the yarn to her, and she even offered to deliver the yarn to the buyer if she was in Dublin. I was so happy! During the entire time I kept in touch with the buyer, telling her what I was trying every day. The day after I found the hand carrier, I got an email from the buyer, she was laid off from her journalist job and had to cut back her yarn spending. She apologized over and over for putting me through the trouble. I was very surprised we could make this deal work at all, and even more surprised how it didn't work in the end. But I was happy to keep the yarn!

Happy Fiber Arts Friday! Join the party on Andrea's blog and leave me a comment!