And the Winner is...............

MINOU14 selected by a random number generator (an almost awake 17 year old) "Quick, give me a number between 1 and 21"

"One and 21"

"Ha ha, try again. "

so the bag will be sent off to Minou - I've added a selection of gourmet hot chocolate mixes I bought at Fibergarden last weekend. Deb has a very beautiful shop/home and runs a great Holiday retreat Thanksgiving weekend.

Congratulations!!

1000th Feedback!!!

KIP Bags by Ruddawg has gotten their 1000th feedback! In honor of this momentous occasion, I am giving away a One of a Kind KIP Bag filled with goodies. The stuff? A sampling based on the idea "A Few of my Favorite Things."


What are a few of my favorite things? Well, KIP bags, of course. This one is red velvet, 10" high by 7 1/2" wide. A red velvet wrist strap allows for knitting and walking at the same time. It has a decorator fabric bottom and fancy stitching at the top to give it a more festive look.

What is in the bag?



The top fuzzy item is a pair of socks. Not just socks, but a pair of those fuzzy and oh so soft socks. I am a fiend for socks! I ask for a new set of socks every year for my birthday.

Next is a skein of Alpaca yarn - Caramel in color. I love, love LOVE alpaca! This skein is from Blue Sky Alpacas, 120 yards of Sport Weight Yarn.

The red item is my most useful tool for knitting, sewing and everything else. It's a small swiss army knife that goes on a set of keys. It's got a small pair of scissors, knife, nail file, tweezers, and toothpick. I've had one myself for many years and find it so handy.

I will provide a list of my most useful websites. They will be of free knitting patterns, and useful websites for those who knit socks and such. As these are not my knitting patterns, please make sure to follow their copyright instructions. They are my "go-to" patterns for quick gifts.

Moisturizer pretty much speaks for itself. Somehow, it always seems as though knitting takes the moisture out of my hands. With my asthma, perfumed moisturizers can set off an attack pretty quickly. This moisturizer from Gold Bond is effective, long lasting and fragrance free.

There will be chocolate added to the bag, but I haven't gotten it yet. It's just too much of a temptation to leave out in this house.

NOW - The details:

To enter to get this KIP Bag giveaway, Leave a comment. Comment about whatever you like, but make sure I can get a hold of you in case you win. The first winner will be selected next Wednesday, December 1st at about 8 am CST.

Thanks to all who have made the KIP Bag a success!

awwwwwwwwwww

My Sister and Brother-In-Law live about 3 miles away from here. On some days, they bring out their puppy dog, Mattie to run the back two fields. Mattie gets so excited about it that sometimes she just does not want to go back home.

One time in September, she got out there and didn't want to come back when called. My Brother-In-Law was hunting and finally just gave up. It was cold and rainy. I told him that when Mattie came back in, I'd take her into town and drop her off. She came ambling back about 5 minutes after he left.

I put her in my car and drove through to town and she stood on my passenger seat looking out the window the whole way. I had to take a picture!

"Isn't it strange that Princes and Kings
And clowns that caper in sawdust rings,
And just plain folks like you and me,
Are builders for Eternity?
To each is given a bag of tools,
A shapeless mass and a book of rules,
And each must make ere life is flown,
A stumbling block, or a stepping stone."

- So............what'cha making?

phat fiber has landed!

First of all, let's give props to the mail lady for braving my front porch:

Those are Asian Ladybugs, MILLIONS of them! Once a week during the soybean harvest, we get inundated by them. We end up having to use the back door to keep them from invading the house too much.

Anyone want a free Lazyboy? Bugs are yours to take care of though.
OK onto the package:


Oh Fiber-y goodness is just ooozing out of the box!
I laid all the stuff out on my stove.

Close up of the upper part
And Close up of the lower part:


I then put it all carefully back in the box so that I can take it to open knitting at the Dragonfly tomorrow so the ladies can see all the cool stuff.

Gotta go. I think there's an Asian ladybug crawling up my leg!

Is this the best pairing of fiber and bag ever seen?!?! Photo is courtesy of Into the Whirled which is giving this away to some lucky person.

Just in case you missed that: CLICK ON THIS LINK TO GET INTO THE GIVEAWAY

The fiber is from Into the Whirled: Click here for Etsy Shop
and the bag is from Jessalu: click here for her site

Is the Baby thing over yet?

Three of my good friends have decided to enjoy the thrills of parenthood. I'm excited to see them reproduce! You see, these friends have seen Alex grow from a little kid to a tall, lanky, deep-speaking teenager. I do not envy them dealing with toddlers in their 40's, but hey, better them than me!
But their education into parenthood gave me some funny memories. I was explaining the need for nursing pads my friend Ang, and she looked as though I slapped her across the face. As the little offspring have made their entrance into the world, I've made some nursing shawls so that child can eat in privacy.

That's a swallowtail shawl knitted from Misti Alpaca for the infant I called Survivorbaby. This one was given last weekend while we were in Milwaukee. Mom was curious at why I gave her a shawl until I explained what it's used for. Then she promptly tried it out.
This one was given to the babe we'll call "Sweet Pea" Sweet Pea was the first baby born and I was chatting with Mom and told her she needed a nursing shawl. The problem was that the first one I gave her was wool, and I realized that it wasn't machine washable. So I gave her this one which is acrylic.
The third one was made from white superwash with a lace pattern that I ripped off from a shell pattern.

I gave Mom a little pamphlet about how to dye it with kool-aid if it gets stained. I figure that she might be able to use it for longer if she could do that. This one is still waiting for its baby.