Haverfest, and a winner!

This weekend was the celebration of finishing classes, thus completing my first year at college.

This pretty much sums up the weekend. Sweet. I’m exhausted.

Last night I also played glow in the dark capture the flag, over a large expanse of campus. Did I mention how much I love this place?

Most importantly, however, is the drawing from the last entry! I expected more comments, but all the better, because the random number generator picked Jaime! Hooray! I’ll email you and get your info, and then some time this week I’ll be mailing you this book and a couple of other fun things.

Next to tackle: exam week.

Good Fortune

Psst! Scroll down to the end for a contest! Yarn! Books! For you!

I’ve been the recipient of excellent fortune lately, having won not one blog contest, but two actually. A few weeks ago or so, Red Knits held a contest for her 100th blog post, and I was drawn a winner! So I wanted to share two things with you today.

First, Red’s generosity! I got the loveliest package from her the other day, full of yarn and goodies.

She sent me a yummy skein of Knit Me Now Yarn Sock Love in the colorway “Lady Slipper,” which is the state flower of Minnesota. It’s gorgeous. Pink and green and tight twist and squishy! I love it. And me not buying sock yarn lately… this was an excellent treat.

It’s so spring and festive!

Also in the package was a delightful bookmark needle gauge, which is currently tucked into my copy of The Friday Night Knitting Club from the Yarn Pirate, and a little tin of knitter’s hand cream. It smells good, and feels so nice on my hands!

Thank you, Red!

So, in return for my good fortune, I’m going to run a contest of my own. The bookstore on campus was having their end of year sale, so I picked up a copy of the first Knit Lit book. Leave a comment, telling me what kind of good fortune or generosity you’ve come across lately (can be knitting related, but doesn’t have to be!) and I’ll put your name into a hat. At 4pm (EST) on Sunday, May 3rd, I’ll draw one and send the winner this book, along with some other things (ahem, yarn) I’ll find to tuck in with it. =)

P.S. I’m almost done the PW’s socks AND my cami, so stay tuned!

drawing a winner

Hooray! We have a winner for our 20th Pair Contest/Drawing! Yay.

That was fun, everyone, thanks so much for commenting and getting involved and flashing some sock stash. Some of you have some awesome stashes, and I am way jealous.

When we go on our cross-country trip this summer, my mother said I’m only allowed to take two sock projects. Outrageous! It’s a six week trip, and I can finish a pair of socks in two weeks with distractions– with a lot driving, I’ll be finishing those in days. So I’m going to sacrifice packing underwear so I can pack more yarn.

Okay, just kidding. I promise to pack enough underwear.

Anyway, the winner of the drawing for the very sexy gradient sock yarn is…

darbyrose! Yay!

Darbyrose, email me at felinecrafty-AT-gmail-DOT-com to stake your claim on the very sexy yarn.

Again, thanks to everyone a ton. That post is probably my highest frequented, aside from the Spring Cable socks pattern.

And for the sake of having a picture, here’s Admiral Nelson taking a nap.

drive-by WIP post

So, I don’t have any pictures to show you today because I think my mum took the camera to work and didn’t bring it back, so instead I’ll just bore you with chatter.

My first WIP priority (still) is the Icarus shawl for my graduation. I’m 2 rows into the last 24 row chart, and each row must have over 400 stitches on it, because they take almost half an hour each. I have 10 days to finish the shawl. I want to be blocking it at the latest next Saturday, so I’ve got to push through and get this done! It’s beautiful, though, and I’ve gotten to the beads too early, so I keep shoving them down the yarn wondering if I got too ambitious and put them on way early. At any rate, I need to do two more rows today to keep on track and at a reasonable pace.

The second thing I’m working on is The Project Sweater, which I have tried on and decided looks ridiculous, but I’ll keep going for the sake of the project. I’m very tempted, however, once I’ve shown it off and gone “ooer sweater” to rip it out and fix the outrageous short rows and stupidly huge stripes. It’s a bit silly. Anyway, it’s not as if the knitting part is the hard part, but it is a learning part. It’s all good.

Thirdly I am working on a pair of Mad Color Weave socks in the Socks that Rock in “Sapphire”, and they’re lovely. Sue at Lovelyarns was pondering trying to start an account with BMFA at TNNA next weekend, and so I pulled out the socks and showed her the yarn. She wasn’t impressed at the way it pooled, but I’m enjoying the colors and the way they get mixed up nicely by this pattern. I really like knitting with the STR. Yum. I’ve got to do a few more rows to get them to the heels for my class on Saturday, and I’m hoping both students come back. Aileen was pretty chill about the whole 2-socks-2-circs thing, but the other woman was quite frustrated with it. I don’t know. I love knitting my socks this way, but sometimes I think I forget that my brain handles engineering very well, and not everyone thinks the way I do.

Other projects are stalled out or put away for a while. I need to work primarily on Icarus before I can really pick anything back up or start anything new (like the Elinor tunic, which I am super excited for). But I will finish it! And I promise to post finished pictures-myself-included, in my dress, after graduation.

And, of course, don’t forget to check out the drawing for my 20th pair of socks, Uzume! It’s open till Friday night, then I’ll close the comments for a bit.

FO: Uzume (and a contest!!)

Start: May 5th, 2008
Finish: May 24th, 2008
Pattern: Uzume (ravelry)
Yarn: Hand dyed (by me) merino sock yarn
Needles: US size 2s, two at a time on two circular needles

Very pretty!

I have a short attention span, apparently. The repeat on these socks was only 6 rows, and so I had to do ten of them on the legs, and because I did them both at once they seemed to take FOREVER, so I was bored. But I plugged along and each little closed cable was very cute and satisfying.

I love the lace! I love how on the foot you can see my tattoo through the lacey pattern. It’s great.

Ah, so where is the contest, you ask?

Well this pair of socks is my twentieth pair of socks. I feel like that’s a lot. And as I feel like that’s a lot, I feel it also deserves a contest in celebration!

So here’s your job: leave a comment on this entry (and if you feel like it, link me a picture to your sock yarn stash, if you have one), and in a week (next Saturday, May 31st) I will put all the names in a metaphorical hat and draw one, and that will be my winner!

Here’s the incentive:

This is hand-dyed yarn, by me, in a gradient pattern. I’m actually going to dye another ball so the gradient matches (this one only goes light to dark) and you can knit two socks that will look similar, instead of one being all light and the other being all dark.

If you don’t want the purple, I also have teal, turquoise, and green. I’m using them all for my sweater, so I have more dye than I can use (except for all the bare sock yarn I bought).

Leave me a comment!