December 7

Yesterday's winner: AmyJ! Congratulations, and enjoy the roving - any batt from Abby's Yarns makes spectacular yarn.

Today giveaway is a lovely ball of Sockotta and a knitting mystery novel! Good luck to all.



ETA: I finished the second Baby Brain Slug Hat! This one is for our impending arrival...a few differences - it's in BFL rather than cotton, and I put wires in the antennae...they're posable. *snort* This tickles my fancy to no end.

December 6

Yesterday's winner is Carissa! Congratulations!

Holy cow, time is flying! I don't know about you all, but I am starting to think about some serious Christmas sweet making. Yesterday, I found something at Linens N Things that made me very very happy. Check it:


CASTLE CAKES! Seriously, how awesome are these? Ok, now that my dorkiness is confirmed...I also snagged this:


A mini-bundt pan. I'm planning on making chocolate truffles for Christmas gifts this year anyway, this is just (hopefully) going to make the process prettier.

And for those of who who don't believe that I look like a dork in hats - proof is in the pudding, mes amies...


Belle, in all of her glory. It's just tragic that I'm only going to wear her inside the house. ;)

And finally, today's giveaway:


Some incredible roving from Abby's Yarns. I believe that it's superwash merino, Angelina (the sparkly stuff), and a little bit of camel down. Good luck everyone!

December 5th

Yesterday's winner - jkleclerc! Congrats Julie. Enjoy the yarn, and the ensuing toasty toes!

Today's giveaway:

Some Handmaiden.


This is the yarn from the kit for the Angel Rumple Scarf. I've lost the pattern, unfortunately. But the ball on the left is silk boucle, and the one on the right is kid mohair. You knit the two of them together, and it creates this amazing texture...You can improvise any simple lace scarf pattern, and it'll be lovely, I promise.

In home knit news - I was playing with Mr. Munchkin in the snow yesterday, and somehow my ankle gave out on me...and I twisted it slightly. I'm fine (the ankle's all better after a good sleep), and the baby kicked me HARD after I picked myself off the ground - so he/she is also fine, if ticked off at my clumsiness. So, I sat on the couch last night, ate apple pie and knit. Finished off Belle. Final verdict? I love the pattern. Love the resulting hat. And I look dorky in all hats. *sigh* Oh well, at least my ears will be warm this winter!

December 4th

Well, I've figured out why all of my knitted projects are stalling...it's 'cause between me and the boy, we seem to lose all of his knitted woolies! We were in the mall last night, picking up a few things...and I lost his hat. >_< So guess what I'm working on today? *sigh* Good thing that we got walloped with a snowstorm yesterday, and the snow is falling fast and thick today too - lots of knitting time, methinks.

So, yesterday's winner was Jaichan! I found this nifty little Excel trick yesterday to help me generate random numbers - it's working well, so far as I can tell.

Today's giveaway is:


More sock yarn! This time, it's some of Lucy Neatby's Celestial Merino Dream. Gorgeous stuff...this one is hard for me to let go of.

December 3rd...

Yeah, I've run out of clever titles already. If I'm going to be doing this for a whole month, I'm going to need some way to remind me of the who whats and whens of this shebang.

Yesterday's winner - Berrit! Congrats Berrit, hope you enjoy the roving. I'll update the blog with what you write me about your charitable deed when I get it from you.

Today's giveaway:


A skein of Yarn Pirate sock yarn in the colourway Killer Bees. This is superwash merino and promises to make super funky socks...or even a shawl for the more daring. Oh and as an fyi, you can enter every day if you wish - just make sure that I have a way of contacting you (either via email or posting a comment on your blog), as I'm paranoid about that. :)

In home knitting news - the lost mitten has been replaced, I'm starting on another brain slug (this time for our little one...apparently it's going to be a coooooold winter, and a February baby will definitely need a warm hat, eh?), Belle is charging away (this time in Schulana Tweed-Lux), and Eleanor is stuck in limbo for some reason.

For anyone looking for something a little different in terms of holiday music, may I recommend the Butties? I love their take on Joy to the World...and the whole CD is pretty awesome - imagine the Fab Four doing all sorts of Christmas music. It's a nice antidote to the pap that's usually blasting on store sound systems this time of year.

December 2 - today's giveaway

Good morning! I figure that I'll be able to get the daily giveaway up around 10 am (my time - Atlantic time), so I'll count whatever entries I get by then for the previous day. Yesterday's winner (thank you online random dice roller!) was Alison - congratulations! Up today for grab is a *huge* chunk of roving dyed by FatCatKnits on etsy. You don't have to be a spinner to use this stuff - you can needle felt it, use it for thrummed mittens, or even for knitting with (just separate it into pencil roving and chunkily knit away). Good luck, everyone!


In personal knitting news...Mr. Munchkin somehow lost a mitten in the grocery store last night. And you have never seen a sadder little boy. I swear his heart was completely broken by the way he was carrying on. But it's a good thing that he's got his mother and her stash - new mittens on the way now. Pictures to follow.

Gotta be starting something...

Rant first.

I've (mostly) knit three different hats for myself this past week. And frogged every single one of them. 1) A slouchy hat of my own design - didn't like how the brim was shaping up. 2) A neko hat based on Piro's hat (from Megatokyo) - abandoned because I found Belle and fell in love with the pattern. 3) Belle - abandoned because I got within 3 rows of finishing...and ran out of the cashmere that I was using. Frack, frack FRACK!

Will be giving Belle another shot, but maybe tomorrow - I'm just too mad to knit anything for myself right now. Oh, and in other knit news, I was playing around with etsy and put some handspun in my store...didn't realize that it was a live posting, and came back the next morning to find that it had sold. That was a bit of a shock, lemme tell ya. Mr. Ninja was both dismayed and delighted...I think that his desire to see more room in the house was counterbalanced by the silly price that I'd put on the test sale. He's right of course, I totally lost money on the sale, but I was immensely cheered that someone liked my spinning enough to give it a shot and actually plunk down money for it!

Anyhoo, now for the Giveaway!

Well, it's officially the start of Advent. And while I'm officially not operating under any sort of organized religion, if there's a whole season where people are encouraged to act with genuine goodwill towards their fellow men/women? I'll take it where I can get it. And to that end, I'll be doing a sort of advent calendar giveaway from December 1st until the 31st. But with a twist...

Here's how it will go:

Everyday, I'll post a photo of a yarn/roving/something knitting related. I'll draw a random winner from the comments posted on that particular day. And then I'll email the winner. However, here comes the twist - I would like the winner to go do something charitable, and email me back with their snail mail address and a short blurb on what they did to pay forward the kindness of the season. Examples might include a small donation to a charity (I do prefer Doctors Without Borders, but you may prefer to act locally), knitting something and donating it to a local organization, donating to your local library/museum, supporting your local food bank, etc. It's up to you.

There will be no limits on how many times you enter - it's a daily thing. And as my statistics teacher tried again and again to explain, your chances of winning something are just as good today as they are tomorrow. Heh. As an FYI, I will be giving away really nice stuff as time goes on - brocade knitting needle cases, luxury yarns and rovings, project bags. So please feel free to post about this giveaway where ever you'd like, as the more people sharing the spirit of the season the better, eh?

And with no further ado, here's today's giveaway.


Love these colours.

With a sneak peek at tomorrow's...