A wee winner!

Thanks to Trinity for her suggestion -- her comment was the randomly selected winner of my sort-of little contest.

Trinity, send me your address so I can mail you your wee prize!

You want to know what I've bought, right? NOTHING yet. Nothing. I'm still waffling. Turns out the Kindle doesn't work in Canada [blerg], not that it was in the budget. Current idea: someone suggested an Ice Cream maker. I get bored with the low-fat Chapman's flavors [yummy, but always the same], so this just might be the ticket!

In any case, thank you all for participating! I loved reading all your suggestions and clicking on the links. It's fun to dream.

looking as cool as a Fisher & Paykel

My office has recently had a makeover. Wanna see?



What, it doesn't look so different from the last time, except significantly messier? Well, you're not paying attention, then.



Every good office should have a ukulele. [and a Pee-Wee bobblehead and a set of 3 Serenity action figures including Captain Tightpants in said pants and Jayne with a bigass gun].

But wait -- here's the best thing. Did I buy this $14.95 custom-designed hanger to get my uke out of oops-i-just-sat-on-my-uke range?



No. I went to Rona and bought this, except smaller and in grey:


For 80 cents. What the hell costs 80 cents anymore? Not even a pack of gum. I feel quite clever.

---

Also! The Knitty Calendar Contest ends tomorrow night at midnight! Have you sent in your entry yet? You know you want to.

The biggest contest Knitty has ever had

Sometime on April 13th, Knitty reached an insanely great milestone: 50 million individual site visits. FIFTY MILLION.

As you can imagine, there was much hooting and hollering of happiness. This is a big deal for us, and it's all because of our readers. So we sat down and thought about how we could thank you guys for reading, linking to, talking about and knitting from Knitty magazine. And one thing came to mind: really great shwag.

I contacted some of the Knitty favorites and was answered each time with a resounding, "Yes! We want to celebrate with you!" Knitters, we have ourselves a contest.

How do you enter? It's so easy, it's almost embarrassing. Just sign up for the Knitty mailing list which we:
a) never sell or give to anyone, EVER, and never will
b) only send messages to a few times a year about Knitty-related news and events, like when a new issue or surprise goes live!

Okay. So why would you want to enter this contest? Please sit down. You may need a cold compress on your forehead in order to make it through the list of prizes.



One lucky winner will be chosen at random [using the random number generator] from the members of the Knitty mailing list and will receive:

From Lexie of Lexie Barnes, a $250 gift certificate to her shop!





From Beth of Lorna's Laces,
a sweater's worth of the Lorna's Laces yarn of your choice, in your choice of color!




From Potter Craft, you'll get these six knitting books:
Big Girl Knits * More Big Girl Knits * A Fine Fleece
Twinkle's Weekend Knits * Tweed * Shear Spirit






From Knitting Out Loud, their entire library of knit-related audio books:
Stitch & Bitch * America Knits * A History of Hand Knitting
Knitting Memories * No Idle Hands * The Art of Fair Isle Knitting





From Jennifer of Stitch Diva, her entire library of more than 40 Stitch Diva Patterns in knit, crochet and hairpin lace!





From Cat Bordhi, her entire collection, autographed, including all 4 of her revolutionary moebius and sock knitting books and her novel, Treasure Forest.





We can't stand it. This is about as big as we've ever done anything, and we're super excited! Tell your knitting friends -- it's as easy as joining the Knitty mailing list. And that's pretty danged easy. Are you already on the list? Then you're already eligible to win!

Contest winner will be chosen by a random number generator on May 1, 2008 at 9 am eastern time [that's Toronto/New York time for those that will cut it close]. The random number will correspond to the person's numeric place in the Knitty Yahoo Group [home of the mailing list], which is assigned by date registered. The winner will be announced later that day on this blog, through the Knitty group itself and probably by random strangers on the street.

a winner!

it's damned good i didn't have to choose a winner based on why you wanted the discount, because so many of you told stories that made me all warm inside. you guys are good people.

instead, i did as i said, and went to the random number generator. plugged in 57 as the total (inclusive, of course) and the number it chose?



so the 12th comment gets it...and that's Sarah! [what's your e-mail address?]**

thanks to everyone who commented. i knew there were more lurkers hanging about. hi to you all!

**p.s. Sarah is currently unreachable. If I don't hear from her by Friday morning, I'll pick a new winner! Because dangit, this code needs to get in the hands of another bag ho. :-)

The 2008 Honorable Mention gallery is up!

And you can see some of the fabulous photos here on Flickr. Now you see how hard it was to pick winners for this year's calendar contest!

Thanks again to everyone who entered!

Calendar contest news, and other things too

Item 1: Check your spam filters, because I've sent out 12 congratulatory messages to the winners of the 2008 Calendar Contest. It was harder than ever to pick this year's selection of winners. We got so many great photos but only have 12 spots. So if you didn't get my happy message, you may very well end up in the honorable mention gallery! The calendar will be released along with the fall surprise. Thanks to everyone who entered!

Item 2: Panic in the Knitty household this morning. We are out of Stumptown's Hair Bender blend. I bought 2 lbs of beans when I was in Portland, and it's all gone. Does anyone know if they'll ship to Canada? Their website is spectacularly unhelpful! SOLVED! Thanks to Audrey and dameknitsalot for their help. I called, told them I'd take the responsibility for the time delay [the 2 lbs we had lasted about 2 months and still tasted great at the end. maybe it would have been better if it was fresher, but we don't live in Portland, so we deal with it. :-)] and they're shipping 4 lovely lbs of whole bean Hair Bender to our door. Happiness has returned!

Item 3: QUESTION: has anyone taken an Ashford Joy wheel [in the soft case] onto an airplane? Does it fit in the allowed spaces? Please dish. I need to know what to do! I'm damned well not shipping it as luggage and I am sure I read somewhere that it's carry-on sized. ANSWER: Shannon Okey, world-traveller and spinner, assures me that it fits, and if not, flight attendants will treat it like a delicate instrument. :-) It also measures JUST 45" [all dimensions totalled], so that means it's legal.

Item 4: I love Northern Spy apples. It's Northern Spy apple season. Some misguided people think the Northern Spy is a pie apple. In fact, it is the best, crispiest, most perfectly tangy apple that ever grew on a tree.

That is all.

2008 Calendar Contest...let the onslaught begin!

We've done it twice already and it's such a tradition that we couldn't think of stopping now! If you've knit something from the pages of Knitty and can get hold of a good-quality digital camera, you could win great stuff! Full details are on the Calendar Contest page, right here:

We always love seeing your photos, and so do the rest of our readers. Don't be shy...think carefully, point and shoot, and then send the results to us!