Giveaway Winners!!

Congratulations to Liz and Jessica - the winners of the knitting patterns and biscotti. Please check your e-mail inbox for a message from me.

Thanks to everyone else that visited my blog over the past few days. It was amazing to read through your replies and learn so much about the origins of creativity. I will be reading through the comments again this week and hope to post a summary soon.

Thanks also to Sew, Mama, Sew! for hosting such an amazing collection of blogs for their giveaway day.

A giveaway

I could blame it on the holiday weekend, the gardening or the kids. But the fact is I just simply forgot to note the sign-up deadline for the Sew, Mama, Sew! giveaway day on my calendar. Melissa over at Tigerlily Tinkering - be sure to check out her recent apron adventures - reminded me of this amazing creative effort and I felt the urge to jump in too. So…I'm not sure if I am an officially sanctioned participant, but I will host a giveaway anyway. Here are the details:

I'll be giving away two knitting pattern collections, both by Melissa Matthay and Sheryl Thies (rav link), this one and this one. This means there will be two – yes two – winners here. Each pattern collection will arrive at it's destination packaged alongside a homemade, freshly-baked batch of biscotti. I usually make chocolate-almond, but I am happy to accommodate any food preferences or sensitivities.

To win, leave a comment describing either who taught you to knit (or sew, or create, or do what it is that you do) or why you began. Beginnings and origins are interesting to me and I'm curious to learn if crafting/creating is something that we are raised with, or whether we reach for it during particular moments in life. Or is it both? My twin daughters will pick the winners from a hat at 12 noon CST on May 31st. Lucky for them there are two winners! I will post the winners later that afternoon. Unfortunately I won't be able to send these items internationally, so the giveaway is only for individuals in the U.S. and Canada.

Good luck and I look forward to hearing from all of you!

New Sewing Machine

Our local newspaper recently ran an online auction. I won a new sewing machine. It's proven to be better than my old one by leaps and bounds (and no problems with the tension).

I'm celebrating the new machine by working on a coin quilt. This one is modern fabrics (Amy Butler, Anna Maria, Kaffee Fassett, and others) in green/blue/tan tones with white sashing. I'm loving how it's turning out. I've got fabric for a second one cut, but in red/yellow/tan tones. I'm thinking of matching quilts for my twin daughters; similar in spirit to these. I'm hoping they look a bit like this one when they are finished.

Picking up where I left off

Introducing the French Market Bag by Polly Outhwaite. It's been a long time in the making. I think that I started this project 3 or 4 years ago, but I can't be sure. I found the half-knitted project shoved carelessly in the bottom of a storage bin late last week as I was searching around for something else. It was the intense purple color that caught my eye.

I remembered the project and mumbled something along the lines of, "oh, that bag again," but then I stopped myself. Why did I have such negative feelings about this project? I couldn't remember why. I've done some pretty intense knitting lately, surely I could handle a bag now, right? So up from the depths it came, and downstairs to the couch for a good once over. Everything seemed to be in order - the needles, the yarn, the right number of stitches. So I started knitting away.

You might be able to see in the photo below that I must have changed something about my knitting over the intervening years - the stitches are twisted. Not sure exactly what changed, but boy am I glad that it is a project to be felted. No worries about actually being able to see the twisted stitches in the end!

I can't remember why I let this project drop. I can only imagine it had something to do with not knowing how to do a kitchner stitch and my general fear of felting. Sorry to report that despite my growing sock habit I don't really understand the stitch any better; and since we have a front loading machine I don't really have any control over the rapid felting. Luckily for me, it turned out this time. Even though the bottom looks a little pointed it is knit so that it has a square base. It sits lovely when full of yarn.

I think the basket is looking beautiful, and it's begging for some fresh cut flowers. I will have to indulge at the market next week.