Unexpected inspiration

Over the last few weeks, spring has really exploded on the scene here in southeast England. As this is our first spring in our new residence, we've been having a fabulous time discovering new flowers in the garden, new trees to pass by, and (most importantly to Boo) a new place to spy wildlife. Our town green has a duck pond, and every morning for the last week we've been stopping on the way to school to gauge the population growth. There are some fancy orange and brown geese with four goslings, an albino Mrs. Mallard with 15 ducklings, numerous Canadian geese incubating progeny, and even a pair of swans on a nest. It's all very exciting.

With the plethora of feathered beasties around, wouldn't you know that my muse would settle on what might be the oddest of them all for my latest sweater inspiration. And I've spent the last week and a half scouring the local (and not-so-local) yarn shops for the right color yarn. After many fruitless trips about town, I began searching online, and have discovered a new use for mini-skeins:

They're just the right size for swatching. These three beauties are from fivemoons, whose lovely booth I visited at Wonderwool Wales. I think the Robin's Egg and the Nelly are going to be just perfect for what I have in mind, and the Forgetmenot base is just glorious (50% superwash Falkland merino, 50% silk). And she does DK weight too, which would be my preference, as a fingering weight sweater is too much of a commitment even for me....so now it's on to designing a stitch pattern and some sketching and a load of swatching. Fun, fun, fun!