Contests

And the winners are…

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Meg is having a “name that band” contest – based on the clues presented here and here, see if you can guess the name of the band and win a yarny prize. The contest deadline has been extended to midnight CDT on 3/23.

Amy is having a Buffy the Vampire Slayer related contest for her blogiversary celebration. Check out the details and leave a comment by Saturday, March 24, to have a chance to win Victorian Knitting Today, Addi lace knitting needles, and Buffy goodies.

Thanks to everyone who left a story for my contest – I never imagined that I would get to read so many wonderful tales! I’m definitely thinking that I need to include more personal history moments on my blog – and I hope to read more on yours. Without further ado, as selected by the random number generator, here are the five winners:

Oh, yes, Chaos would like a word with some of you.

“I can’t believe some of you thought I would actually eat that kitten! She’s all furry – ewwwww! And I’m not sure how I would attach the can opener to her, since she’s really wiggly. I am so disappointed in you.” -C

Randonymity, Reading, Tales of the Neighborhood

Hang on for the ride!

35 Comments

If linear’s your thing today, better move along. Here? Not so much. You have been warned!

Don’t forget to leave your comment for the SoC “But since I wasn’t blogging then…” contest before 5 pm CDT today!!

Reading Update
In the Bleak Midwinter and A Fountain Filled with Blood by Julia Spencer-Fleming. These are the first two Claire Fergusson (Episcopalian priest) and Russ Van Alstyne (police chief in Millers Kill, upstate New York). The books are well-written and suspenseful and I already have the next few on reserve at the library.
A Deeper Sleep by Dana Stabenow. The latest Kate Shugak novel – these extremely well-written and suspenseful mysteries are set in remotest Alaska. You definitely want to read them in order!
24 Declassified: Trojan Horse by Marc Cerasini. Really, what can I say? 🙂

Of course, I didn’t drink any green beer on Saturday, but I did accompany my SIL to a midday bowling tournament and took a few pictures…

Something I don’t write about very much, strangely, is how much I love music. Ye gads, I don’t even have a music category on this blog! But I happily listen to my ipod at work all day, listen to my beloved 89.3 The Current in the car to and from work and while knitting at home, and listen to all sorts of interesting things via my favorite music blogs: Largehearted Boy, Cable & Tweed, An Aquarium Drunkard, Chromewaves, and the MPR Current Song of the Day.

So yesterday, when MamaTulip tagged me with a music meme, I decided to play along, even though I usually don’t do memes. (Although I have put a few music memes on a separate page, for the morbidly curious.) Basically, list seven songs that you are into right now or seven songs that you can listen to over and over. My list will be a mixture – and I might have more than seven…

Chaos isn’t much for music…

“I am so hungry. Diets suck. Hmm. I wonder if that kitten would be tasty?” -C

“I think it’s best if I hide under here for a while, don’t you?!” -M

Randonymity

Things that make me happy: Shaun the sheep

53 Comments

My favorite animated film of all time is A Close Shave, an Oscar-winning Wallace & Gromit short.

My favorite character in A Close Shave? Definitely Shaun the sheep. I have accumulated a little bit of Shaun paraphernalia (especially compared to some people!). Tiny Shaun sits on my phone at work.

I also have a stuffed Shaun.

“Tastes… sheepy. Mmmm… sheep.” -C

“Are you sure this is our best side, Mom?” -C&M

So when Amy posted some pictures from the March 2007 issue of Simply Knitting, I immediately thought of Shaun and had to go buy the magazine (available at Borders).

Someday I will actually knit myself a Shaun – I already have yarn for it! Check out Wendy’s knitted Shaun, which inspired me to track down the pattern on ebay.

Contests, Randonymity

“I waver from the dead to the half dead.”

27 Comments

Update: Let’s try this again – apparently I managed to set this post as Private earlier. Whoops… Sorry! See the next paragraph……..

That quote from Atmosphere’s song “Smart Went Crazy” sums up how I still feel after the time change. Why is this so hard?! Actually, until I just looked up the lyrics, I’d always thought it was “I wake up from the dead to the half dead,” which I thought was absolutely perfect. Ah well.

Vicki Knitorious is having a contest to celebrate her blogiversary. Guess how many posts and comments she will have when she sits down to post on the first day of spring, and you could win a copy of Cables Untangled. Leave your guess through March 18.

Stephania’s giving away the socks she knitted for Sock Madness! If you have size 7 feet (about 8.5 inches long), leave a comment by noon CDT, March 16, and you could have some brand new spiffy socks.

Michelle is having a contest to name the cute sheep figurine she got. If the name you suggest by March 31 is picked, you could win fibery goodies.

Keana is having a blogversary contest! Leave a comment by 5 pm March 16 and you could win some Rowan or some of her own hand dyed sock yarn.

My apologies to the folks subscribed to my atom feed – the plugin that I’m using to keep the contest reminder up at the top of my blog seems to ping Bloglines every few hours, making it look like that post has been edited. Definitely time to ask the plugin creator about that…

Thanks for all the feedback on my RPM socks – I kept going with the STR and am about 2″ into the cuff.

Other than that, I got nothin’ today. Brain is a sleepy blank… I think Chaos has the right idea. Do you think my boss would notice if I followed his lead and took a little catnap under my desk?

“…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…” -C

Knitting

RPM vs RPM

46 Comments

Kat’s hosting March Madness again this year and there will be prizes!

A puzzling thing – I crawled into bed last night and realized I was lying on something hard. It turned out to be a 1.5″ long nail. Where the hell did this nail come from and how did it get into my bed, under the covers?!!

Ok, you might remember that I started some RPMs for March FiberFlix a week or so ago, using Lenten Rose, a semisolid from Sundara’s sock club. I haven’t been working on these socks because I started to wonder if Lenten Rose really should be knit into lace and a multicolored yarn used for the RPMs. I pulled out some STR in Titania and started another RPM. What do you think? (Besides that I have yet to see a photo, mine included, that captures how, um, vivid Titania is.)

Can you believe that no cats came to see what I was doing?! May was busy chittering at birds through the open window (it was 64F yesterday when I got home from work – goodbye, snow!).

*chitter chitter chitter chitter* -M

“Hey, May! Mom left yarn and needles all over the living room floor! What? You’re about to catch a bird? Yeah, right.” -C

Contests, Knitting, Project Spectrum, Reading

Tired Tuesday

22 Comments

Teyani is having a contest to celebrate her new blog home! Leave a comment by midnight PST on 3/15 and you could win two skeins of Sock Hop yarn.

KnitNZu is having a contest – her 250th commenter will win two skeins of fingering weight Claudia’s Handpainted.

And remember – I’m having a contest! Leave your comments at the contest post by 5 pm CDT, March 19. And if you haven’t stopped by and read the comments – what are you waiting for? They’re brilliant! I hope everyone is having as much fun leaving comments as I am reading them.

Reading Update
Death of a Butterfly by Margaret Maron. I love the Sigrid Harald books, but they’re older and hard to find at my library or used bookstores…
Murder with Peacocks and No Nest for the Wicket by Donna Andrews. More Meg Langslow mysteries! I realized while reading Murder with Peacocks (the very first Meg mystery) how rare it is that I laugh out loud while reading. In Murder with Peacocks, Meg is home for the summer, doing all the grunt work for the three weddings (!!!) in which she is the maid of honor. No Nest for the Wicket (the most recent book) features an eXtreme croquet match…
24 Declassified: Veto Power and 24 Declassified: Cat’s Claw by John Whitman. Hee hee – really, not a lot to say about these. I guess they’re a guilty little not-so-secret pleasure. 😉

Knitting Update
I finally knit my little blanket for HollYarns and Cyrano’s Creature Comforts Drive over the weekend. (You have plenty of time – the deadline is June 2.) I’ve been meaning to and meaning to… and then I realized that my yarn was perfect for the current Project Spectrum color theme. Yup. That was all it took to get me knitting… Anyway! This is about 24″x24″ – I cast on 65 or 66 stitches of doubled Encore worsted on a US13 needle and knit until I had a square. This fortunately coincided pretty closely with running out of yarn. 🙂

*streeeeeeeeeetch* -M

I wish I’d taken the following picture at a higher resolution, so that you could see how long May’s little kitty eyelashes are. Awwww….

“What?! This isn’t staying here for moi?! Hmph. How can everything always be mine if this isn’t?” -M

Contests

The SoC “But since I wasn’t blogging then…” contest

133 Comments

One thing about blogging – it allows us to document and share all sorts of ephemera that would otherwise slip away unnoticed by anyone else. Sometimes that might be for the best, but usually, it’s those fleeting glimpses into your lives that really help me feel close to all of you. Hopefully that isn’t just me! 😉

Allow me to present the Stumbling Over Chaos “But since I wasn’t blogging then…” contest. Think of something that happened before you started blogging, something that, had you been blogging, you would have shared with us. Describe that event in a comment to this post before 5 pm CDT (ack!), Monday, March 19. (If you don’t blog, this contest will be particularly easy!)

What? You want me to start? Ok. Back when the Chaos Kitty was a wee kitten (only about 8 pounds or so, instead of the strapping 16 pounds he is now), he started to climb my long summer weight bathrobe (made from a nice textured t-shirt material), which was hanging on the back of my bedroom door. It was winter or early spring, so I wasn’t wearing that bathrobe and didn’t pay any attention to it. After the weather started to warm up, I pulled the bathrobe from its hook to discover that it was now a swiss cheese style bathrobe! Apparently, when an 8-pound kitten repeatedly climbs stretchy, lightweight fabric, there are dire consequences for said fabric. My poor bathrobe suddenly wasn’t good for covering much of anything and I had to throw it away. Now, if I had been blogging back then, I would’ve thoroughly documented this (although I would’ve been dressed underneath the robe, sheesh), as I have documented other tales of Chaotic naughtiness, but since I wasn’t blogging then…

And since I wasn’t blogging back during the memorable summer that I went on over 30 coffee dates (oh, the magic of internet dating… heh), you’ll all just have to wonder what the blow by blow on that would’ve been like. A hint – I went on maybe two second dates and no third dates. The tagline for my blog? Not joking!

Anyway. Winners will be selected by random number and there will be an assortment of prizes. No non-knitters will be forced to take yarn, unless, of course, they’re interested in learning to knit.

A bag of Briggs & Little Atlantic in mulberry (10 skeins, 1350 yards total):

“The tags make excellent snacks!” -M

“But what I really want is to get into that bag!” -M

A skein of Sunshine Yarns sock yarn in Denim:

“This looks like a fun toy, too…” -M

A skein of Trekking XXL, color 144:

“…or this…” -M

A skein of Dicentra Designs superwash sock yarn in Kingsfoil:

“You are so mean, not letting me play with these, Mom!” -M

A copy of Knitting Rules!, autographed by the Yarn Harlot herself to “Friend of Chaos”:

“Stay away from this one, May, because it’s all about me.” -C

Randonymity

Hey baby, wanna swap?

21 Comments

Due to my own silliness and the draconian return/exchange policy of a local yarn shop, I have an extra copy of Jan Messent’s Knit a Fantasy Story. I confused this book, which I already own, with another of Messent’s books, Knit an Enchanted Castle. D’oh!

Anyway! If anyone is interested in this book and would be interested in swapping something for it, please let me know. Here are a few pictures from the book. Also, the cover picture is the actual copy up for swap, but the interior pictures are from my own copy – I wanted to avoid breaking the spine for the pictures.

Update: chittavrtti and I have worked out a swap for this book. Stay tuned, because I’ll be featuring pictures from some of my other Jan Messent books in the future – her stuff is amazing. I doubt I’ll ever knit any of it, but I love to look at the pictures.

This one’s clickable – check out the detail of this farm!

Sheep!!

A wizard

A dragon

A unicorn

A knight in shining (knit) armor

A witch and a black cat!

Randonymity, Reading

It should’ve been Friday days ago…

41 Comments

This is going to wander a bit. 🙂 I definitely need to start with a few things that make me happy:

  • Eating peanut butter off the knife while I wait for my toast in the morning.
  • Fixing a knitting mistake without ripping back.
  • Playing fetch with May when she brings the mouse/fluff ball close enough for me to throw it for her – and also the soft “pooft-plop” as she careens headlong into the front door in pursuit of her toys while fetching.
  • Listening to Chaos’ breathy little cat snoring – this is probably the only cute snoring I can think of!
  • The word “tohubohu” (TOH-hoo-BO-hoo), which means chaos or confusion.

Reading Update (because reading definitely makes me happy)
Operation Hell Gate: 24 Declassified by Marc Cerasini. “…a number of early CTU missions were declassified. The following is one of them…” Entertaining, if not great literature.
Night Vision: A Jane Lawless Mystery by Ellen Hart. This series is set in the Twin Cities and features restaurateur Jane Lawless and her theatrical friend Cordelia Thorn. This is a very well-written series, but it definitely isn’t a cozy. The latest book examines celebrity stalking.

It has just been one of those weeks. I’m feeling pretty healthy at least – even with working until 5 am Thursday! Yeah, still haven’t recovered from that one – but at least I was able to work from home. I’m not the only one who’s sleepy…

“How is a kitten girl supposed to get her beauty sleep with that thing flashing in her face?!” -M

That didn’t seem to bother Chaos. Hope you all have a good weekend and that the Daylight Savings Time change doesn’t mess up your sleep.

“…zzzzzzzzzzz…” -C

Contests, Knitting, Project Spectrum

Of Meilenweit and Mayhem

38 Comments

Aija is having a contest to celebrate her Space Invaders-themed socks appearing in the new knitty! Contribute a few lines to the Choka and you could win some really great stuff from etsy!

KnitWit Kelly is having a contest to help her find her knitting inspiration again – leave a comment by March 13 telling her why you knit, and you could win some yarn, music, and a bracelet!

Recently, I picked up some new Meilenweit Meeting because I thought it looked like a nice Project Spectrum color combination. Unfortunately, after I started knitting it, I realized I hated the colors. The blues slightly clash and there’s not enough grey or black to balance that (for me, at least). So I ripped out this fledgling sock Wednesday evening. (Hopefully none of you got too attached to it.)

“I can see an Addi!” -M

I turned to my stash and discovered some Meilenweit Fun that had plenty of blue and grey to qualify for Project Spectrum. I’m using Craftaholic’s Mata Hari socks pattern (not the charted pattern in that link – it’s explained in text a bit further down). I took these pictures right before ripping the sock back so I could knit another plain row or two between the lace rows so the socks will be a bit warmer and, well, less lacy.

“Maybe if I am very, very sneaky…” -M

“See how sneaky I am? Look out, Addi – you are mine!” -M

Art journaling, reading, knitting, and cat parenting. It's a wild life.