Contest Winner! And a new WIP. . . .

Before I reveal the contest winner, I just want to say that I am going to be discussing the new Rockin' Sock Club shipment. So, if you haven't received yours yet and don't want to see it, please save reading my blog for another day.

That is all.

Moving on. So, now we have the moment we have all been waiting for.....the winner of the coveted skein of Mariners Yarn. I had 120 entries this contest (it's amazing what Ravelry does for the blog sometimes!) and the random number generator tells me that contestant number 74 has won.

So, the winner is. . . .

Trudy!!!! (I have emailed you Trudy about how to retrieve your skein o' yarn!).

Thanks for stopping by my blog everyone. I enjoyed reading everyone's comments in their contest entries. Hopefully, I will have more yarn giveaways soon. They are super fun!

And, now back to your regularly scheduled knitting. . . .

Last week sometime I received my Rockin Sock Club July installment. Here it is in its loveliness:
This time the package came with two (hooray!) patterns. I love them both, but the Gumdrop socks were calling to me hardcore. This afternoon I completed sock number one:
I plan on spending the rest of this evening working on the second sock. I have been reading here and there that some people were not crazy about this colorway. I am totally fine with that, as everyone has different tastes. And, actually, it worked out for me, as someone on Ravelry saw that I had posted about buying more of this colorway. She messaged me, and now we are trading yarn. I get more of this deliciousness (oh how I want to lick this yarn...it looks like a Sweet Tart!) and she is getting my STR in Grawk that I will never knit with. Everyone's happy!

Well, that is it for tonight. Tomorrow will bring some yarn dyeing, I think. I am out of my regular sock yarn to dye (although I am ordering more this week), so I am thinking about playing with some of the other stuff I have around here (there is a skein of merino/silk blend begging to be dyed). When the yarn talks to me, I just do what it tells me to.

Happy knitting!

M-M-Mingus!

Looking for my blog contest/yarn giveaway? It's in the next post down. You can click here if you like. Or, you can read my blog post then meander down to the giveaway post. :)

Finally! I have finished the Mingus socks! And, boy did they turn out great:


My friend, Jenni, and I did a little mini-KAL. She finished her socks at least a month ago. Me? I finished them last night. Oh well. We both are proud owners of some Mingus socks, so all is good.

The Specs:

Pattern: Mingus by Cookie A. Oh, how I love me some Cookie A. patterns!
The Yarn: BMFA Socks That Rock Lightweight in the Turquoise colorway
The Needles: Size 2 dpns
Time to knit: Ravelry tells me it took a little over two months to complete these socks.
The Results: I absolutely love them. If I didn't have a bunch of other sock patterns queued I would probably start another pair. Maybe later this year. :)

So last night after I finished those socks, I got the urge to dye some yarn. And to dye something very un-Mariners yarn (don't get me wrong, I love the Mariners yarn, I just dyed A LOT of it). The neon green was calling to me, and I was trying a new yarn dyeing technique and I think the results were pretty good:
Both of these skeins are for sale in my etsy shop (http://knittinglikecrazy.etsy.com). I am calling the one on the left City Lights and the one on the right Zack Attack (hell yeah, Saved by the Bell reference!)

That's it for now. I received my July Rockin' Sock Club kit from BMFA today and I think I may start those socks. I am in love with the yarn and pattern!

Happy knitting!

100 skeins and a yarn giveaway!

Well, I did it. Today I shipped the yarn order to The Yarn Stash. It took a weekend full of barely sleeping but I did it. 100 skeins of Seattle Mariners-themed yarn. And I am so happy how everything turned out:



At one point, I did get a little nuts, and thought the yarn was out to get me. I played dead and eventually, it left me alone and allowed me to get back to work:This colorway is exclusive to The Yarn Stash, but I did dye one extra one to give away on my blog! Hooray for yarn giveaway time!

It's simple. Please just fill out the form by clicking the following link:

http://knittinglikecrazy.com/yarn_contest.htm

You have until Monday July 28th at 6pm Central Time to submit your entry. One entry per person please. A random number generator will determine the winner.

Here are some pictures of the coveted skein:So, that is it. I have been knitting a little here and there to try to keep my sanity, but nothing really to show you. I picked the Mingus sock back up, so that is going well. I am hoping to be done with it by the end of the week.

Thanks to everyone who helped me/listened to me bitch when I got stressed out, etc. over the course of the last month. I appreciate your helpful hands and listening ears! And, I am happy to say that I am ready to dye more yarn and get things going on my etsy site again. :)

Happy knitting and good luck in the yarn giveaway!

Can't blog now....
Winding yarn. . . .
Be back soon. . . .With a yarn giveaway.

This one time, I wasn't busy, but I don't remember when that was. . . .

So, yeah, I have been a little busy these days. Summer, I tell ya!

Let's see. I will start at the beginning. A couple weeks ago, I went to Green Lake, WI, and I caught a fish:I didn't really knit much on that trip, I really just wanted to show off the picture of me catching a fish (oh, and the chemistry sweatshirt; that thing is awesome)!

Anywho, I have still been working on the big yarn order o' doomy doom, but I have managed a bit of knitting here and there (mostly at the day job at lunch and break times). I was training the new guy at work, and while he was driving around the county, I was sitting in the passenger seat, happily knitting a sock:That's Noro Kureyon Sock yarn purchased from The Loopy Ewe awhile back. I needed a totally mindless sock to knit while riding around, and that is the perfect yarn for that. Don't need anything fancy to make that sock look good! The pair of socks is done, I just don't have the picture to show for it. Just trust me. :)

Then, there was some various last minute wedding knitting for my dear friend, JC. She told me a couple weeks before her wedding that she didn't have a garter and couldn't find one she liked. This was, like, about a week or so after the new knitty came out with the Eloping pattern.

So, I knit her two garters, one to keep and one to throw. Here is the first one (which is the throwing garter):

Then there was the garter for her to keep, which she tied her grandmother's wedding ring to:
Actually, she managed to get the "throw garter" back, as our friend Dan caught it, and I had told all of my guy friends if they caught it, they were to return it to Jenny. I mean, seriously, we are all about 28. They are not going to hang a garter from their rearview mirror. And, if they do, I question why I would be friends with them. :) Although, I guess a handknit garter would be acceptable to me, but I digress.

The wedding shawl was out and looking good:

Jenny with her dad

And, here is the happily married couple, Jenny and John: And, damn, I look good in green:

From left to right that's Alex, me, Ang, Ryan, Dan and Colleen.

On Sunday, I got to go to my knitting group (hooray!!!). I had been neglecting them for almost a month, so I was so happy I got to go. And, I got my Knit Picks Lace Sampler yarn from Jenni:

It's the Sunset Picnic colorway. All that lace yarn for $25? Yes, please. Me, Jenni, and a couple other people from our knitting group are going to be knitting Lady Eleanor, and we decided to try to do it with the lace yarn. I am hoping to have a bit of time tonight to start messing around with it.

That's it for now. This week the wedding madness starts again. I am going wedding dress shopping with my sister tomorrow night. Then there may be a hot date this week and I am going to go knitting with my peeps two nights in a row. My idea of a good week.

Happy knitting!