Right on schedule, my December PhatFiber sampler box arrived right after New Year's. As incredible as it sounds it was nearly a week before I had time to open it! Yes, I know it only takes 2 minutes to open a box but that's unthinkable to do that with a sampler box! So many yummy samples to fondle and yarns to explore! My absolute favorite came in the sparkly silver and red paper in the center bottom of the picture. It's a platinum grey yarn - 100% angora! I tell you I couldn't believe my eyes when I read the label! Maybe it would help to tell you I am a dedicated avoider of Angora. Yes, it's soft and silky but the continual fragments of fluff that waft in the air when using it tend to make my nose itch constantly. Nothing I have ever started with Angora content has ever been completed, in fact 100% of those projects were frogged in surrender! This is why this 20 yard skein of 100% Angora handspun from AngoraOnline astonished me so much! It's slinky silky hand and slight halo caught my attention immediately but never in a million years would I have expected to see something so tame and inoffensive to my nose as this Angora! It's certainly proof that because hand harvested and hand processed Angora has not been chemically treated and brutalized the way commercial Angora is, that the resulting yarn has cohesion, elasticity and strength. Commercial Angora fibers are so damaged by the mechanized processing that the fibers simply break into small bits which is why they are always floating up my nose! I mean, this skein is good enough to eat! I'd knit with it in a heartbeat and I absolutely KNOW I would finish the project without being tortured the entire time!

The yarn samples varied in weight and every one had a nice feel to it. What was even nicer was that everything wasn't Merino. Yes, it's a cadillac fiber, but there are SO many other nice ones out there! It's great to see more blends and breeds in the box!

A number of the fiber samples enchanted me. I really liked the one rolled cinnamon bun-style from It's A Colorful Life. This is precisely what I think is an ideal sample presentation! Easy-open zipper bag in an appropriate size for the sample, thoughtful presentation, making color the main focus and voila! A sample that flies into your hand when you open the box! The fiber? BFL to which, the only improvement would be if it was superwash! (but that's just my bias) The color combo is superb!

The red/white/yellow braid at the left and the multi-blue twist at center top are both superwash Merino, in fact I would go so far as to speculate that both A Dyeing Wish and To Ply get their undyed fiber from the same supplier, which means the real "competition" comes from which colorway you like better as they are tied for excellent quality fiber and similarity of presentation.

There wasn't a single sample of fiber I didn't like - and that's a first. It seems every box I've had so far at least one seller has submitted something that, when I touched it, I went - ooo I'd never buy that!

Since I have improved the look of my business cards I think they are standing up much better against the commercially produced ones in the box. As much as I "like" using recycled paper ones, no matter what you do with them, somehow they always seem to look dirty so I broke out the crisp white blanks and turned out some starchy colorful business-like ones! So much for the environment! *sigh*