SUE!
Sue, your prize is on its way!
Thank you all so much for playing! And thank you for the fantastic birthday wishes. I hope you all had a lovely and wonderful happy new year and that 2015 is filled to the brim with lots of fibery, crafty goodness!
Happy New Year from my family to yours!
Love,
Cara
SIGH.
Six months without posting?! That’s got to be a record for me. And not one I’m proud of. I would tell you that time flies when you’re having fun – but it’s more like time flies and disappears when you have kids!? Between strep, two bouts of pneumonia (same kid!), two musicals (one each), two holidays and a myriad of school volunteer activities, I’ve barely had time to breathe, let alone blog. I’m not making excuses. This is not how I want it to be – I wish I could go back to writing everyday – hell – even once a week would be fantastic (and right now I’d clearly settle for once a month!)
I have been knitting. A lot in fact. And I have a ton to say about it. But that will come in the new year. I’m making a resolution to blog my knits – any and all knits – not just the finished ones. When I wait to have a finished knit, I wait forever and then don’t blog it. I am fairly active over on Instagram (see link in the sidebar.) I seem to be able to do that on the fly and I really like the knitting community over there, but it doesn’t replace blogging. I PROMISE! I will be here more often!!
In the meantime, I have a birthday coming up in a couple of days. I will be 45. That seems really old to me. I even had to get my first pair of progressive lenses last week! See: OLD! And it occurred to me the other day that my blog had a birthday – a BIG birthday and it blew right by while I wasn’t paying attention. So I turn 45 and my blog turned TEN in October! That’s some major milestones right there!
What’s a big birthday/blogiversary without a CELEBRATION! Let’s have a THANK YOU FOR READING ALL THESE YEARS CONTEST!!
You can win this AWESOME PRIZE PACKAGE! What’s in it you ask? How about an Offhand Designs Ursula Bag in Sahara and Limited Edition Velvet! Not good enough? How about I throw in two skeins of Plucky Knitter Primo Fingering in Bashful and Garnet Martini? More you say? How about a Lantern Moon birthday cake tape measure and some Floops stitch markers? Still more? I’m going to finish it off with some beautiful note cards made by me! FANTASTIC, no?
To win, leave a comment telling me what you hope to accomplish in your crafting life in the new year! Please leave only ONE comment per person. I will pick a random number and choose a winner. You have until Wednesday, December 31st at 11:59 EST to leave a comment. I will announce the winner on Thursday January 1st. Good luck and thanks for reading! I can’t wait to hear from you!
Good luck! Happy New Year! And, as always, thanks so much for reading and hanging out over these past ten years. There are no words to tell you how much I appreciate it!
Love,
Cara
Sorry I’m late to announce the winners!! I’m new to this whole Kindergarten thing and there are SO MANY ACTIVITIES before the Winter Break. I know this is NOTHING compared to the end of the school year, but still. I’m ready for the break even though I know that after the first 24 hrs of my kids every second of every day I can’t be held responsible for anything that may happen. But still. I don’t have to pack lunches for TWO WHOLE WEEKS! Celebrate good times! C’mon!
Without further ado – the WINNERS! The random number generator (how funny that they now have an app. Oh the times! They have changed!) chose 2 and 74. That means Kitty wins the Fab Funky Fibres Fifteen Colour Yarn and a box of Note Cards and Amy C wins the generously donated Yarntini yarn in the Boogaloo colorway and a box of Note Cards! CONGRATULATIONS!! I will be emailing you both shortly.
But, really, you’re ALL winners in my book! Thank you for coming out in huge numbers and leaving me with some really great dyers, bloggers and patterns to visit. It felt like the old blogging days there for a minute. I hope to be back much more in the new year. In the meantime, have a happy christmas or whatever you may be celebrating this winter season and if I don’t see you before, I’ll definitely be seeing you on the first! HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
L, C
UPDATE!!! The fabulous Jessie of Yarntini has added a prize! There will now be TWO winners! See the end of post for contest details! YAY!! And also a sock update. The Fish Lips Kiss Heel ROCKS!
I found my mojo! It’s back! And I’m going to tell you all about it, but it might take awhile as I ramble on and give you lots of links to explore. If you’re the impatient sort, skip to the bottom of the post for a colorful contest! YES! I’ve been wanting to have a contest for so long. I used to do them all the time, remember? Well this one’s a good one. So settle in and enjoy!
As I mentioned in my last post, I was in that post-awesome-project state where even the best potential patterns seem like too much work. I think I was just exhausted from all the work that went into Oshima and needed a little break. But I was also yearning for that can’t put it down excitement and nothing was giving me that spark.
But I found it! And how I found it is kind of an adventure.
By far my favorite social media tool is Instagram. Maybe it’s the photographer in me but I just love posting to IG and also following along on IG. On a daily basis I am bombarded with inspiration from new and old friends. For instance, if it wasn’t for Cauchy sharing all her incredible spinning pictures, I wouldn’t have become infatuated with Lacey at Moonrover. Her fiber and yarns are incredible. They both have me wanting to spin again!
Another HUGE enabler on IG is Susan Anderson! I’m embarrassed to tell you how much money I’ve spent because of Susan’s IG thread. Seriously. Ann and I are always blaming her for our purchases. (“I bought a cross stitch sampler. THANKS Susan Anderson!”) Not too long ago Susan posted about her fabulous stripey socks – 15 Stripe Rainbow Sock Yarn from Fab Funky Fibres! I was like WHAT? Rainbow? Stripes? I AM THERE!
Yeah. So I ordered the yarn. Self-striping sock yarn. Firstly, when’s the last time I knit a sock? (I can actually tell you it was the winter before my second baby was born. I was on a tear of knitting five socks at a time and I finished those five socks then started the mates to those five then left them. They are still on the needles. My baby will be four in June. You do the math.) Secondly, I haven’t knit with a sock yarn other than my beloved STR lightweight in? Forever, maybe? There was an early early Regia Cotton Stripe that I knit my first pair with and a few Koigu pairs, but other than that – all STR all the time!
Stripey sock yarn. What am I going to do with that? Order more! I might have fallen down at Knitterly Things (Twinkle Lights! YES!) and Yarntini (Super-Duper Boogaloo! Under the Sea! Fruitastic!)
Even with all this new yarn coming in, I still didn’t have the sock knitting mojo. The yarn is all gorgeous, to be sure, but also outside my comfort zone. If you haven’t noticed by now, I’m a creature of habit. I like the familiarity of a yarn I love and a pattern I love and a method I love. (Hello Monkey Socks! Jaywalkers! Willow Cowls!)
And then I was clicking around some blogs thanks to my favorite Bloglovin’ email I get everyday, and I stumbled upon the Yarn Harlot’s recent post where she answered some questions about knitting socks. She said she mainly knits socks top down (like me) but when the yarn is self-striping or really special or both, she knits them toe up so that she can use all the yarn. My brain went DING DING DING! THIS! I have only attempted one other toe up sock a million years ago and I did NOT enjoy it, but then again, sock architecture has changed drastically in the last five years. Right? I told myself, I AM GOING TO KNIT A SELF STRIPING TOE UP SOCK. And I got (inexplicably – remember creature of habit) really really excited.
I got even more excited when I started clicking around, following short row heel links and stumbled upon the Fish Lips Kiss Heel. The Sock Therapist had me at NO WRAPS! (This was the main problem with my first toe up heel. I couldn’t get the short row heel to work in a way I liked.) For ONE DOLLAR, I downloaded the tutorial for the heel. Next thing I knew I was asking a good friend to trace my foot.
And then I was watching videos on Judy’s Magic Cast On.
Then, in the ultimate of craziness, I was measuring out sock yarn and matching up colors and starting two socks with matchy matchy stripes!
I’ve now knit through all fifteen colors in my Fab Funky Fifteen Colour socks and according to my foot template, I’m ready to start the heel!
I’m so excited. I might knit the other sock up to the same point, or I might just go for it. I have to read through the directions again and watch some videos. But YAY! A new sock and a new way of knitting them! If this heel works the way everyone raves that it does, it could change my whole way of knitting socks. And I’m really excited about breaking out of my old habits and learning something new. I always tell my kids that one of the things I love about knitting is learning how to do new things! And it’s true!
HERE’S A SOCK UPDATE: The Fish Lips Kiss Heel is GREAT! No wraps! No holes! No picking up a million stitches for the gusset!! AND IT FITS LIKE A DREAM!
In the meantime, want to knit your own pair of Fab Funky’s Fifteen Colour Rainbow Socks? Because I have an extra skein to give away. And a box of Color Cards from my own collection. Everyone needs some color on these dark winter days and I’m so happy to share!
And, Jessie of Yarntini has added a skein of her fantastic self-striping yarn in the Boogaloo colorway!!
I will be adding another box of Color Collection cards to her skein! TWO WINNERS!!! YAY!
To win, leave a comment telling me your favorite sock yarn, your favorite sock pattern, your favorite Instagram feed or your favorite knit blog! Please leave only ONE comment per person. I will pick a random number and choose a winner. You have until Wednesday, December 18th at 11:59 EST to leave a comment. I will announce the winner on Thursday. Good luck and thanks for reading! I can’t wait to see what inspires you!
L, C
PS – if you want to follow me on Instagram, a link to my feed is in the sidebar.
I’ve only heard from one winner, so here’s another way to go. Please look for your name and your blog or the first part of your email address (the one you left in your comment.) If you see yourself, please check your spam filter or leave a comment and let me know who you are! THANK YOU!
Kate (tntkate)
Rebekkah (bowerbirdknits)
Melissa (melliska)
Roby (crobyb)
For those of you that didn’t win, January One, G-Rocks and Never On Sunday are all available for sale now on the Blue Moon website. Also, I recently bought some new camera equipment, so here are some new shots of my girl. Notice the two bottom teeth, nice and sharp.
Thanks for reading. I hope to be back with a knitting post soon. Like maybe even tomorrow.
And some of you have definitely WON! Please check your email – don’t forget your SPAM filters!
The winning numbers were:
Grand Prize Winners
908
340
Single Skein Winners
441
82
422
Thank you all for playing! I will announce the names of the winners as soon as I hear back from all of them. And I will try to do my limited skills analysis – it might take me awhile – but I think there’s some interesting stuff in those comments!
In other news, the baby has decided that she likes to take a quick nap anywhere between 6:30 and 7:30. Which is fine – I get some time to myself – always appreciated – but she doesn’t sleep long and then I can’t get her to go to sleep for the night until somewhere between 11 and 12. The evening nap isn’t really long enough for me to get anything done and then she goes to bed so late I don’t get anything done at night either. It’s frustrating. Yesterday I was trying to keep her awake but she was so cranky and practically just fell asleep anyway that I couldn’t keep her up. She did manage to go to sleep for the night at around 10:30 – but then I did too. (Of course then I was up at 6:30 unable to go back to sleep!)
We’re doing a trial of a new (to us) class today at The Little Gym. My sister’s kids have all taken classes there forever and I’ve been to a bunch of them. When they opened one close to us I jokingly told myself that now I could have a kid. And here we are. Monday we start up our music classes again. I think Meli’s really going to love it and it gets us out of the house. Winter is hard.
I still haven’t measured those swatches. Maybe I can do it now – the baby’s still asleep….
After going through all the emails, deleting the dupes and the Russians, there are 915 entries for the contest. 915. That’s a new record, folks! WOW! Thank you all for participating!
As I was going through the entries, I thought wouldn’t it be cool to analyze the results? 915 is a pretty good sample, no? (I don’t really know anything about statistics, so this could be way off.) Kind of like the State of the Knit, as based on what we’d all like to do for the next year.
Alas, my laptop temporarily died on me this afternoon. (It’s be subsequently resurrected.) I got stuck getting out of the city for FOREVER today. Due to some more technical glitches G and I can’t be on online on our laptops at the same time. Just to write this post I had to drag myself out of bed and get on the desktop. So, anyway, I used my alone time today to get through the emails but Miss Meli started calling before I could pick the winners. Hopefully tomorrow – pray for naps. Meanwhile, I have some swatches that I washed DAYS ago that I haven’t had a chance to count and I was going to cast on for a new sweater today. Sorry to be a bummer.
Oh and here’s one piece of analysis paralysis I can share with you: No one, not one of the 915 people who entered the contest, said their goal for 2009 was to knit less.
Chew on that one awhile, why don’t ya.
Sorry it took me so long to get this together! Meli and I trekked out to LI today for a wonderfully WII visit. Ann got a WII for Xmas and I took my remote and my mii and we all – Annie, Flair, Meli and me – had a blast! Thanks girls! I needed that!
Here’s the contest I promised! Tina at Blue Moon gave me a most excellent birthday present! A COLORWAY FOR MELI! It’s called NEVER ON SUNDAY and it’s beautiful!
In honor of this new gorgeous colorway, my beautiful daughter and my lovely friend Tina, I’m going to give away my family of yarn. Two grand prize winners will receive THREE skeins of Lightweight Socks That Rock in the January One, G-Rocks and Never On Sunday colorways!!!
Three prize winners will receive ONE skein of Lightweight Socks That Rock in Meli’s Color, Never On Sunday.
All winners will be selected from the comments by random. Here’s how to win:
Leave me a comment (in English – sorry all my Russian commenters!) and tell me one of your knitting goals for the coming year. For instance, my knitting goal for the coming year is to actually knit. One comment per person please. Comments will close at 11:59 PM EST on Tuesday, January 6th. I will announce the winner on Wednesday.
Just so you know – the colors are currently not available on the Blue Moon website, but all three colors will be up there sometime later this month. I’ll let you know when they become available. In the meantime, you can try to win them here! Go ahead! Leave your comments!
Thank you!
L, C
Let’s see how many of you are still out there reading….
The other day, with Rhinebeck looming in my mind, I started thinking, yet again, how much I miss my blog and my community. I thought to myself – you should have a contest. You used to have really fun good contests! Why not have another one? You could really jumpstart the blog!
Enter fate, via an email from Carrie at Onlineshoes.com! A while back I blogged about a pair of Dansko clogs that I bought from Onlineshoes.com that were perfect for my handknit socks. (See them here!) Apparently, this blog post did not go undetected by Onlineshoes.com and they came to me with a proposition. Would I be interested in telling all of you about their new contest? In exchange, they would give me a $100 gift certificate to Onlineshoes.com to give away to one of you! I emailed Carrie back. “Let me clarify – I mention your contest on my blog, and you’ll give me a $100 gift certificate to give away?” She wrote back YES! I said – SIGN ME UP!
So here’s the details on the Dankso Contest at Onlineshoes.com!
Onlineshoes.com is giving away a pair of Limited Edition Dansko Professionals to two lucky winners! All you have to do to win is tell them HOW DO YOU DANSKO?
Enter their contest here. It’s open to US residents only and there is no purchase necessary to play! The contest runs through November 10, 2008. GOOD LUCK!
NOW – for MY CONTEST!
One of the things I loved about this opportunity was how it coordinates with the end of Socktoberfest! Unfortunately I did not knit myself a new pair of socks this Socktober, but I know many of you did. What better way to celebrate than with a new pair of shoes! But I’m not just giving away a $100 gift certificate to Onlineshoes.com, I’m also giving away yarn for your next sock adventure! A $25.00 gift certificate to Blue Moon Fiber Arts for your very own pair of Socks That Rock!
Fortunately or unfortunately, this lucky grand prize winner must live in the United States – basically because Onlineshoes.com only ships within the US. BUT! I can’t let all you non-US readers get away without a chance to win as well so I will choose a SECOND winner, at random, and that winner will receive a $25.00 gift certificate to Blue Moon! YAY!
What do you have to do to win?
Leave me a comment. Tell me about your favorite pair of shoes ever. Or your favorite sock pattern. Or just say hello and tell me that you miss me. 😉 I don’t care. Please only leave one comment. I will choose a GRAND PRIZE WINNER at random – after verifying that they live in the US, I will forward them on to Onlineshoes.com so they can claim their $100 gift certificate and send them the Blue Moon gift certificate. If the first winner I pick happens to live outside the US, they will automatically win the second prize of a Blue Moon gift certificate. I will then continue to pick winners at random until I find someone who lives in the US. If the first winner I choose, at random, lives in the US, then I will choose a second winner, at random, and they will win the second prize regardless of where they live. Comments will be accepted through 11:59 PM EST Wednesday, November 5th!
So. Leave me a comment. C’mon. You know you want to!
[ETA: Please note that I have absolutely nothing to do with Onlineshoes.com or Blue Moon Fiber Arts other than I have patronized them in the past. I don’t work for them. I will receive NOTHING in return for promoting them – not even free shipping. 😉 ]
It’s that time, everybody! A BABY Contest! I’ve been thinking about this ever since I got pregnant, so here it goes!
There was a bit of a wrinkle thrown into things because I will most likely know ahead of time the baby’s birthday, but we still don’t know the sex, or the weight, so that’s what I’m going to have you guess.
Send an email to baby@januaryone.com with the following information:
1) Baby’s Gender
2) Baby’s Weight
3) And, in case of a tie break situation, please add your guess for the baby’s first initial. Two letters – one for a boy and one for a girl. These initials will ONLY be used in the event that two or more people come up with the same winning answer.
ONE ENTRY PER PERSON. EMAILS WILL BE ACCEPTED UNTIL 11:59 PM EST MARCH 5, 2008.
DO NOT LEAVE YOUR ENTRY IN THE COMMENTS!!!! ANY ENTRIES RECEIVED VIA THE COMMENTS WILL BE DISQUALIFIED.
This is how it’s going to work – the person who gets the sex right and the weight right wins. If no one gets both right, the person who gets the sex right and comes closest to the weight WITHOUT GOING OVER wins. In case of a tie, the person who gets the sex right, the weight right AND the first initial right will win. If there is no one who does this, the person who gets the sex right, the weight right and comes closest to the first initial WITHOUT GOING OVER will win. If after all that, I still have two people who get it right (or more) well then, all will win and I’ll be expecting lottery numbers whenever MEGA is over 100K.
Here’s some info for helping you decide:
Pictures of my belly – taken this morning.
See how high I’m carrying? Great for bladder control, sucky for indigestion. Currently I am 36 weeks, five days. When I had an ultrasound the other day I asked the OB if the baby was big and she said, “not particularly.” Remember, babies gain about a pound a week in the last month and my baby will probably be born before 39 weeks.
So far I’ve gained a tad under 30lbs.
I was 6 lbs 2 oz when I was born a few days before my due date. My husband was something like 9 lbs 14 oz. (God bless his mother!) I’m pretty sure he was full term.
Not sure what else you need to know. Oh yeah! The PRIZES!
There will be ONE GRAND PRIZE! (One baby – one prize!) You will receive a $25 Gift Certificate from Blue Moon Fiber Arts AND a $25 Gift Certificate from The Loopy Ewe! PLAY ON!
Dudes! I’m having a baby!!!
PS – Happy Birthday Dani! WHOO HOO!
