Brooch Contest: First Prize

It's been a while, hasn't it?

I think enough time has passed that I can safely show you first prize in the brooch contest that I sent off to Norway a while back.  Hopefully it has made its way across the ocean by now.  (See Vote on a Brooch herein.)

Congratulations to Sølvi (aka xGvJx,) who asked for a Gryffindor scarf bookmark.

This is crocheted using embroidery floss instead of yarn.

I got the idea for this bookmark last year when I scored a huge lot of embroidery floss on eBay for the Best of Hats/Worst of Hats hat.  I recognized the colors and made a bookmark similar to the one above for my daughter.

I didn't have the colors anymore, so I went to my lys to purchase more floss.  What lot of colors there are from which to choose!  I did not trust my color memory.  Luckily, as I was trying to decide whether I'd chosen the right colors, a very Aloof Young Woman (aged 13? 14?) strolled past me.

Me:  I said, "Excuse me?"

AYW:  (eyeroll)

Me:  "Um, are you a Harry Potter fan?"

AYW: *(eyeroll)  Yes.  (with an implied, almost audible "Duh!")*

Me:  (showing her the colors)  "Gryffindor?"

AYW:  (Repeat response between the asterisks above.)

When I'm ready to make the other three houses' scarf bookmarks, I think I'll take my daughter, or at least one of my younger friendly-type friends, with me.

Woot! Loot!

I apologize for my infrequent blogging these days. Demands on my time and all. I won't bore you with the details.

Crocheting time has become dear, as well. I am very far behind on promised projects, including the prize for the brooch contest, but I hope to have that completed by the end of next weekend.

Meanwhile, I received this fantastic package from my Falling for Ewe secret swap pal. Dear, dear, Pal. You and I have far more in common than you may have realized. I cannot wait to "meet" you for real and exchange private emails.

Just opening the outer package gave me a lift. Just look at all the pretty packages!

Inside was the most luscious, soft, heavenly yarn imaginable. And the color! I wish the photo could do it justice. It's a bit on the watermelon side of true red, and looking at it just makes me sigh. I'm not sure what I'll do with it, but I'm looking for scarf and hat patterns right now that will suit it. I would love feeling this yarn caressing my face in the San Francisco fog.

I am afraid I have given my spoiler a bit of a hard time because I mentioned that I don't really need any more yarn. Add to that the fact that I can't have scents and shouldn't eat sweets and it's kind of hard to spoil me, isn't it?

Well, she manages quite well, I must say. These Dove sugar-free chocolates are fabulous! My candy jar at work was in need of replenishing, judging by the "innocent" comments of passersby who have been looking in there. I shared a few of the sweets with the jar, but most of them are stashed in a drawer where only I can sneak them out!

I love the sage green cotton thread. I have so many projects in mind requiring cotton thread, I don't know which all I'll choose for this thread ultimately, but I'm definitely going to be making glass cozies and beaded evening bags and sachets for a start!

Speaking of which, this book -- which came from my spoiler's personal stash, by the way -- is actually a book I once checked out of the library! I love most of the patterns in it and it's especially wonderful because it has cat toys in it! My cats were gifted by a previous spoiler with knitted cat toy mice and they have abandoned all their other toys for those three mice. One of them goes hunting every night at around 3:00 a.m. and carries those mice around the apartment, dropping them and yowling about her conquest. (Luckily, DH and I are relatively sound sleepers.) I had always hoped to have crochet patterns of cat toys.

But there are more patterns in there I love -- and plenty for cotton thread, like sachets and purses and wash cloths. It will definitely get use.

Spoiler, thank you so much! I'll get a proper thank you in the mail this week.

The Winners

I'll make this short and sweet because I know you're eager to know before the Super Bowl starts.

Third Prize Winner:
Anna
Second Prize Winner:
funlovingal
FIRST PRIZE WINNER:
xGvJx
Please send me your snail mail addresses via Ravelry and, xGvJx, please send me your email address as well so we can discuss what your prize will be.
Congratulations everyone!  Talk at y'all later.

Vote on a Brooch

I promised you in the post Ravelry Swap on a Budget Great Reveal that I would show you the brooch I had bought to go along with the shawl that Beth of Needle Bling fame knit me.

Not only did I buy a handmade brooch that matched the shawl perfectly, but I also found that I had two others in my brooch stash that also matched.

(My coworker Maria, who was there when I opened the package, wants me to tell you that I wear this shawl at work practically every single day.)  I alternate brooches on it depending on what I'm wearing or what mood I'm in.

So, vote for your favorite brooch and win a prize!

Here's how.

Vote by leaving a comment with your Ravelry ID or an email address or website, a way to contact you in other words.  (It's not a contest, really.  More like a drawing.  I'll put all the names in a hat or a shoe or a bucket and draw one.)

First prize is something crocheted by me.  (Don't get too excited.  It'll probably be a cotton wash cloth or a soap saver or something equally banal.)  First place winner can choose from something I've already made (which isn't much) or negotiate for a particular item in a particular color, as long as you are willing to allow time for me to make it.

Second prize is Kool-Aid dyed alpaca yarn from Needle Bling.  100% sport weight alpaca yarn from Frog Tree Yarn. Two 50-gram skeins, approximately 260 yards.  (Photo courtesy of Needle Bling.)

Third prize will be a $10 gift certificate from Needle Bling.

Refer your friends to this contest and get an extra entry for you and for them.  They just have to mention in the contest that they were referred and by whom.

Here are the choices:

Brooch #1:

This is the handmade brooch I bought the weekend before I got the shawl.  It has a jade backing behind white filligree with a bird in the center.  I'm not sure what the white is or how it is made.  And since your vote doesn't affect the contest, I don't mind telling you that this is my favorite.

Brooch #2:

This is a brooch I found on eBay. It just caught my fancy. It is a faux Victorian brooch with a cameo center. The bright green doesn't go quite as well with the shawl, but I still like it.

Brooch #3:

 

This brooch was a little lagniappe that someone on eBay sent me when I purchased some clothing from her store.  I love it.

There you have it.  Vote by the end of January and I'll announce the winner on February 2nd.

 

September Procrastination Challenge

I have joined this challenge a little late, I know, but by the end of September, I should be able to get one of these three tasks accomplished, and maybe both of them if I'm really diligent!  (But my challenge for this month is just to do one of them.)

• Open all the financial related mail that is stacked up on my computer desk at home and file it;
• Collect the remaining financial filing from 2007 and get it into the 2007 tax storage box; or
• Get all my Criminon students' files up-to-date:  all lessons graded and a letter out to every student

Anyone care to join this challenge? (There's a prize involved.)

First Ever Contest!

So there's this person over at Ravelry who has this avatar (except we call it a "Ravatar"; get it?) and she and I have decided we are twins separated at birth because we have so much in common.  We are not paying attention to the fact that I think there's somewhere between 20 and 30 years' difference between our ages....

I digress.  She's got this Ravatar that has created quite a stir because it's something of an optical illusion without meaning to be an optical illusion.  Everybody who sees it agrees.  It's a picture of a butterfly and a ____________________.

Some people see a caterpillar.  Some people see a whale's tail.  Some people -- MOI included -- see an elephant trunk sniffing at the butterfly.  And one person who shall remain nameless saw a butterfly fart.

It has been the subject of much speculation and finally the person -- "mkrval" to us -- revealed what it was one day and poof!  The caterpillars and the tails of whales and the elephant noses vanished.

Magic!

I digress again.

Anyway, mkvral had her 1,000th post recently at Ravelry -- she's a real chatterbox, that one and she's over 30 posts past that now -- and in honor of her first millenial post, I put up a contest (technically, it's a drawing with a writing assignment) for people to reveal their own experiences with this mystery Ravatar.

It is posted over at Ravelry on the Swap on a Budget group board.  Can't miss it.

So what do you see?

To be included in this drawing, all you have to do is post a story on your blog (or in the thread on Ravelry) -- fictional or non -- about what you see when you look at the Ravatar.

Prizes are highly relevant stitch markers.

First prize:  Set of 6 caterpillars-and-worms

Second prize:  Set of 4 penguins (no, nobody saw penguins in the Ravatar.  They're just my favorite and it's my contest, so there.) 

Third prize:  Set of 3 orange elephants.

Contest closes at 9:00 a.m. PDT on Wednesday, August 13th.  Drawing to be held sometime around 3:30 PM PDT on Thursday, August 14th.