dear knitters tea swap pal...

since you asked, i thought i would write up a bit of information for you about the teas and confections i love. all you other blog readers, you can just ignore this post unless you just like thinking about tea and sweets and yarn. :)

this is not the first time i have written a post about tea. i started drinking iced tea literally as a baby, and have consumed it lustily my whole life. i love iced tea both sweetened and unsweetened, and i also like both plain lipton-style teas as well as herbal and fruty concoctions. anything but raspberries. LOATHE the raspberry in any form actually--the devil's own fruit. but i digress...

as for hot teas, i started drinking them in the summer when i was nine. i had a favorite teacher at school who drank strong black cinnamon tea with lots of sugar, so that is what i wanted as well. it was like liquid candy! along the way i have tried just about every kind of tea there is. black, caffeinated varieties are still my favorite. green and white teas are sometimes great, too. and i have been known to partake of the herbal tisanes as well. however, i find that they lack a certain something for me. i think it's a combination of the slight bitterness you get with a good black tea, and maybe also the ritualistic aspect of mixing in the milk and sugar, which i almost always do. i usually prefer my herbals on ice, and i sometimes make iced tea with a mix of herbals and plain blacks. really--i am pretty open-minded about it all.

as for confections to go with my teas--well--that's a place where just about anything goes. i adore scones, plain and with clotted cream and jam. i love oatmeal raisin cookies. i love biscotti. i love good dark belgian chocolates. and mmmmm, a chocolate cake is sometimes the aboslute best. muffins are also always a good choice. the only things i would say i am not in favor of are brownies and raspberries. i have no food allergies to worry about.

i guess what's left is yarn--can't forget that. like all knitter, i love me some yarn! i make a lot of baby items, and i am just getting going with garments for myself. i am also dying to make some lace, and i have some felted baby blocks in my queue. i have never made socks, but i think it will be doing that before the end of the year--i am just a little intimidated. i like natural fibers best, but if a synthetic is soft and plus and machine washable, i often choose it for baby stuff. i am addicted to mission falls 1824 cotton and to julia, which is a worsted weight wool/alpaca/mohair blend from a local yarn designer. i like ocean colors and sky colors, and lately, i have been leanng more toward the pink than i used to. i also love beautiful heathered greys and saturated blacks. i think i am about 50/50 on variegated vs solid yarns. all in all--i'm not hard to please. :)

so, i know that was WAY more information than you (or anyone else) really needed, dear knitters tea swap pal. but as you see--i am enthusiastic on these topics, and i can't stop talking about them once i get started. thank you so much for asking! you have inspired me to go ask these questions of my other pal as well. i can't wait to put something lovely together for her!