the power of yarn

A very big thank you to everyone who donated!!!! Hubby is completely blown away by the power of yarn. With the funds raised from the WM auction ($175!!!), the current total is $1000! That is awesome! I am sure you are anxiously awaiting the draw results. Here are the winners (in no particular order): Katie H, Linda R, Debra H, Gail D, Hilary G, Phyllis C, Lynne R, Cynthia L, and Alice C. Congratulations! I will be contacting you via email over the next few days so keep your eyes peeled. You might also want to check your spam folder in case your spam filter snags my email.

There is less than 2 weeks til the big day (Sat Jun 18th) and the riders have completed their last big training ride last Sat (almost 200km). The final push is on to get ready. Bikes are being tuned, riders are making last minute gear purchases, food is being prepared, etc. And fundraising is no exception. We have one last thing to auction (technically, there's 2) to help raise just a little bit more money. The famous I-am-teaching-at-Sock-Summit Gladys and her loom have been busy making two scarves which she has donated. I am auctioning both of them this week.

The first scarf is woven from Noro Kureyon Sock (warp) and a merino/angora blend (weft).


The second scarf is woven from the oh-so-soft Knit Picks Chroma.


These scarves are the perfect little something for yourself or a loved one (it's not too early to start Christmas shopping). Or maybe you just want to own something hand made by a knitting/pooling celebrity ;)

To bid, leave a comment on this post with the amount, some method of contacting you (Rav name or email address), and the name of the scarf you are bidding on.

Don't forget that all donations $25 or over will receive a tax receipt that is valid in Canada and the US.

I'll close the auction at 8pm PDT Mon June 13th.

Thank you again for your generosity. One of these days, a cure for cancer will be found! I am sure of it. Have a good week and happy bidding!

more prizes

I want to remind everyone that the Ride2Survive raffle and Wollmeise auction ends next Sat! Hubby has sent me some stats on the current donations. There are 3 entries in the sock/hat/pooling scarf raffle. There are 16 entries in the yarny raffle (and 13 prizes - good odds). Total raised is $80 from 3 donations. We need more! Don't wait - donate now.

For those of you in the US, I have found out some good news. The Canadian Cancer Society is a registered US charity (98-600124). So the tax receipt issued is valid in the US as well as in Canada.

Thanks to some very generous people, I have received additional prize donations.

Hilary (aka yarnpiggy) has donated the following prizes:

Fleece Artist Saldanha (mmmm.... lace)


Yarn Pirate Superwash Merino Sock


Koigu KFM


Thank you, Piggy!!! You are awesome.

And Lynne (aka sockladyspins) has donated a pair of "monster" socks (fits women's size 7-8 shoe). Thank you, Lynne!


These socks are going to be hard to let go (would it be wrong if I entered my own raffle to win these? ;) Lynne knits the most amazing fair isle socks. No two pairs are alike and each one is a work of art. If you click on the above picture, you'll see the details better. Go ahead and check out her blog or her Rav projects. And then go donate for a chance to win this lovely pair!

Ride2Survive 2011

It's that time of year again. Hubby's been training since Feb - riding in the rain and the cold. In 6 short weeks, all that training will pay off when he packs up his cycling gear and joins more than a hundred cyclists and volunteers on their way up to Kelowna for another year of Ride2Survive. Cyclists will ride from Kelowna to Delta in one day - that's 400 kms, 13,000 ft of climbing (2 mountain summits!) in one gruelling 18 hour day, all to raise money for cancer research.

Last year, you helped us raise $2365 through our raffle/auctions and we'd like your help to beat that number this year. We've got some great prizes lined up.

An awesome (if I do say so myself) pooling scarf knit out of non-scratchy Socks That Rock:


A really cool hat also knit out of Socks That Rock in Mustang Sally:


A custom pair of hand knit socks kit from my yarn stash (Wollmeise is a definite possibility :). Check out the pair that I knit for last year's winner:


And here are the yarny prizes:

2 skeins of Sweet Fiber Yarns 100% Merino Sock:


A skein of Wollmeise 80/20 Twin in Baba Jaga:


A skein of Tofutsies:


2 skeins of Panda Cotton:


2 skeins of Louet KidLin:


A skein of Fleece Artist Suri Blue:


A skein of Dyed in the Wool Handmade Fingering Sock:


A skein of Dream in Color Smooshy in the limited edition colorway Bubble Haze:


And last but not least, a skein of my very own handspun:


This was spun on my newest wheel. It's 87g of heavy fingering for a total of approx. 258 yds. It was spun from an Aurelia Topknot, which is a blend of New Zealand wools.

Do you see anything that you like? If yes, then hop on over to the Canadian Cancer Society's donation page (credit cards accepted) and make a donation. Every $5 CDN donated gets you an entry for the yarny prizes. Every $25 CDN donated gets you an entry for the scarf, hat, and socks prizes (awarded separately) and qualifies for the yarn raffle, too. Hubby is notified of every donation so be sure to provide your email address when you donate so that we can reach you if you win a prize.

All donations $25 CDN and over will be issued an official tax receipt (I believe it is only usable by Canadian taxpayers). ETA: The Canadian Cancer Society is a registered US charity (number 98-600124) so the receipt is valid in the US, too. Know that 100% of your donation goes to the Canadian Cancer Society's research programs. Even the credit card fees aren't deducted from your donation amount. The entire ride is covered by the riders, volunteers, and generous sponsors.

The raffle starts today and runs til midnight PDT Sat June 4th. We'll do a random draw on the 5th and notify the winners shortly afterwards. As usual, the first person drawn will get first choice, the second person gets to choose next, and so on.

We will also be auctioning off one and possibly two of Gladys' woven scarves so keep your eyes peeled for the details.

There is one more favour that we ask of you. When the riders are climbing that last hill heading home, battling a vicious headwind, or heads down to keep the snow (it's a possibility) from blinding them, they look down and are reminded of who they are riding for. Written on their legs are the names of the people that have been touched by cancer - a husband, wife, son, daughter, mother, father, cousin, co-worker, friend, and the list goes on... It is a tradition that started with the very first ride 6 years ago.

If there is someone who you would like hubby to ride for, please include their name in the "Company Name" field of your donation. We will make sure every name gets written on his legs and at 6'4", he's got a lot of leg real estate.

If you'd like to read about last year's ride, check out the links on the left sidebar. We were lucky enough to do some live blogging and we plan on doing it again this year.

Thank you for your generous support in helping us find a cure for this horrible disease.

jumping in the pool

You'd think that having Gladys as a co-blogger would result in some of her pooling genius to rub off on me. Uh no. The effect is stunning but it is way too fiddly for me. Kinda like the difference between baking & cooking. You can be a little loose when measuring or substituting ingredients when cooking but you can't do that with baking which explains why I cook and I don't bake. And that's why this scarf is my first and last pooling project.


Pattern: based on this scarf by statnerd
Yarn: Socks that Rock Mediumweight in two colors - Smoky Blue (the first and last columns) and Farmhouse (the rainbow-y one)
Needles: 4.5mm Addis
Notes: It was very difficult to pool two different colours. Smoky Blue seemed to have a slightly shorter repeat length than Farmhouse. If you look closely, I was able to knit Smoky Blue at my usual gauge but Farmhouse had to be knit more loosely.

I think my cast on is 245 sts. Each section has 8 garter rows.


I was going to give this scarf to hubby for Christmas but he said the yarn was too scratchy to wear against his neck so I'm going to give it away. Hubby's big fundraising bike ride, Ride2Survive is coming up soon so I'm putting this scarf in the raffle. Keep your eyes peeled for further details.

recovering

Hubby & I are both recovering from the ride. Despite standing all day, my feet didn't hurt (love my Sloggers Premium Clogs; sadly no longer avail locally) but the lack of sleep and all day sun gave me a migraine which took a few days to shake off. I must remember to wear a hat if I'm going to be in the sun that long. Hubby is doing fine. He said that his legs hurt worse after a full day of skiing. His butt is also recovering nicely. Thank goodness the "sitting in a chair" part of his butt isn't the same as the "sitting in the saddle" part.

Hubby did the R2S raffle draw late Monday and I'm pleased to announce the winners (DaveC are you paying attention?). Linda is the lucky winner of a pair of handknit socks. Maureen won the quilt that I donated. And Gail won the quilt that Iris made. Gail is a member of my Wed night knitting group so I surprised her by bringing hubby yesterday night.


Gail was also the successful bidder for the auction quilt.


Thanks to everyone who donated and congrats to the winners.

The poor cats aren't liking me so much right now. After leaving them for 36 hours and then ignoring them the following day, I hauled them off to the vet's first thing Monday morning sans breakfast. I had them scheduled for their annual checkup, vaccinations, a bath, and teeth cleaning. Phoebe didn't get her teeth cleaned because the vet found a grade 4 (graded on a scale of 1 to 6; 6 being high) heart murmur. After a blood test & xrays, Phoebe's heart is enlarged so she's on medication for that. We've never had to pill her before and since this is going to be a long term issue, I bought pill pockets to hide the pill in. Works like a charm. She goes back in 2 weeks for a follow-up and more medication. Phoebe's thyroid is borderline abnormal and she'll need another blood test in 3 months. Poor Phoebe's starting to show her age (16 yo).

Ricky did get his teeth cleaned and one tooth had to be extracted. With the pain meds and recovering post-anesthesia, he was one groggy cat. We called him "dopey boy".


The bandage on his leg didn't help either. He tried to shake it off and then resorted to walking around on 3 legs. Ricky fell down a few steps while trying to run away from me.

I fed them when I got them home and Ricky made growly noises while he ate like he was really enjoying it. I've been told to feed Ricky soft foods for the next two weeks. Unfortunately, the only food he can eat comes in kibble form. I tried wetting it down but he wouldn't touch it. So I'm grinding it up in my food processor, adding a little bit of warm water, and a tiny amount of duck food to make it a bit more appetizing.

For the last few mornings, if Ricky even thinks I'm out to grab him (i.e. go upstairs while jangling my keys; opening & closing lots of doors), he'll run & hide under our bed. I think it's going to take awhile before he forgets that vet visit.

snip snip tweet tweet

There's one month and 4 days til the big ride and I'm busy working on both the raffle quilt and the auction quilt. The raffle quilt is basted and is waiting for me to machine quilt. But before I can machine quilt, I need to finish the applique stitching on the birdie blocks because I don't want to fiddle with the setting on my sewing machine.

The blocks are done and I got to cut out the background fabric with some fancy scissors that I borrowed from a friend.


Here's an after picture:


Those scissors work like a charm. I don't have to worry about accidentally cutting the foreground fabric.

After finishing the other socks, I felt like casting on a new pair right away. Such pretty yarn!!!! Wish I'd bought more of it when it was locally available.

Ride2Survive Raffle - Part 2

Thank you, Gladys for getting the raffle started. I know everyone is chomping at the bit to win some lovely Wollmeise (the True Love is TDF!!!). So I'll offer some non-knitter prizes to the muggles (aka people who don't knit or quilt).

Prize #1:


A pair of hand knit socks. Last year, the winner let me surprise her and these orange socks were her prize. If you win, you get to tell me what you like and I'll custom knit a pair for you or for someone else if you wish.

Prize #2:


This quilt has been generously donated by my friend, Iris. It measures 62" x 78"and is the perfect size to snuggle under on a cold night.

Prize #3:


A quilt made by moi. It measures 59" x 68". This is a work in progress so ignore the safety pins.

Here's how to enter:

Every $25 that you donate to Team Purl Jam gets you one entry (credit cards are accepted). Make sure you include an email address so that we can reach you if you're a winner. To be eligible, make your donation before midnight PDT Sat June 19th (the day of the ride). As an added bonus, your donation also qualifies for Gladys' yarn raffle (you must donate before June 6th).

Don't forget - every penny that you donate funds Canadian Cancer Society research projects. None of the money is used for administration costs. All rider support is donated by the riders themselves, local businesses, and individuals. Tax receipts will be issued for donations greater than $25. If you do not wish to donate via credit card, contact me (yarnfloozy AT gmail DOT com) to make alternate arrangements.

Once Markus recovers, he'll do a random draw on June 20th for the three prizes.

To find out more about Ride2Survive, check out their homepage and read about Tony's ride last year.

Good luck and keep your eyes peeled - I will be auctioning off a very sweet tweety quilt on this blog.

Ride2Survive Raffle!

Cancer has struck all of us in some way. This year, two of my colleagues are battling the disease, and I've been thinking of them and admiring their strength, courage and amazing good cheer.

Both of our husbands are doing the Ride2Survive cancer research fundraiser for the Canadian Cancer Society this year, cycling almost 400 km (240 miles) in one day. Oh yeah, and there are two mountain summits in that ride. (Tony did it last year -- here's his first description of his ride, and then there's a longer followup post after he recovered.)

So Dotty and I are doing a few yarn-and-quilting-related fundraising activities on this blog to support our husbands.

I'm launching the raffle first. But wait til you see the quilts that Dotty's making -- WOW!

The prizes are:

A skein of Wollmeise 100% Merino in the True Love sock club colourway. (I haven't even taken it out of the wrapping so that the winner will get it in the original condition.)

I'm also knitting up a new pooling stole in this colourway, and will be auctioning off the stole here on the blog -- watch this space for a post (and of course, a new free pattern) in a few days, if I can get a few more hours of knitting time done on it!


A skein of Wollmeise 100% Merino in the Taube colourway. This is one of her semisolids, a gorgeous purpley-blue blend.

A skein of Socks that Rock lightweight in the Saratoga colourway.

Two balls of Regia Kaffe Fassett Design Line, in a pretty self-striping spring flowers colourway.


A Louet Hand Dyeing kit in blues (box was opened just to take this photo).

A skein of Dream in Colour Baby laceweight yarn in the Cool Fire colourway.

Two skeins of Artyarns Supermerino in greens and blues.


In addition to my yarny prizes, Dotty has donated two project bags: knitting chickens and Vancouver Olympics. (If you look closely at one of the background images on the Olympics bag, you can see my office building.)


And finally, in honour of the Olympics which happened in our town in February, two pairs of red mittens, size L (fits most adults) and a water bottle.

Whew!

Now that I've gotten your attention, here are the details.

Every $5 CDN donation gets you an entry, and here's where to enter -- Team Purl Jam's Ride2Survive donations page. Yes, they take credit cards.

Tony will get an email from the Canadian Cancer Society's donation page (it's called "kintera.org") when you donate, and record your entry into his spreadsheet. Just make sure that you type in your correct email address into the form so that we'll be able to get in touch with you if you're a winner.

If you're Canadian, you'll automatically get a tax receipt for any donation of $25 CDN or more. (Actually, every donation over $25 gets a receipt -- I'm just not sure if non-Canadians can use the receipt for their income taxes.) One final detail: All riders and organizers are volunteers, and all costs for this are donated. This means that 100% of your donation will go to the Canadian Cancer Society for cancer research -- even the percentage that credit card companies charge the Canadian Cancer Society does not touch your donation.

This raffle will run from today, Saturday, May 8 to Sunday, June 6 at noon (Vancouver timezone). That will hopefully give you lots of time to decide to enter. To keep the odds of winning high, I'll also add more yarn to the raffle if there are lots of entries. (If you'd like to donate some additional prizes, contact me at gladyswe@gmail.com or send me a message on ravelry -- id=wenat -- and we'll talk!)

On June 6, we'll do a random draw and the first person drawn will get first choice from all the prizes, then the second person will get second choice, and so on. Get your name in often, and you might even get more than one prize!

One final request. There's a tradition on the race that riders write the names of those touched by cancer on their legs. When the going gets tough, especially on the mountain passes, they look at the names and get inspired to keep going for those people. If you have a name you'd like written on Tony's or Markus' legs, please enter that name in the "company name" field on the donation form. If we knitters and fibre fanatics manage to fill both their legs with names, they'll share those names with others on the Ride to Survive team, so all the names will be on the ride. (Markus says he has plenty of acreage on his legs; I think that's a challenge!)


For more background information, here's the story of how this ride started, and here's a video they made last year about the journey the riders make. They say that the most amazing part of the ride is when they go past people holding up photos of loved ones affected by cancer. If you'd like to share your stories in the comments, I'll make sure they get to the Ride to Survive organizers.

More prizes!

As you can see, Tony's stunned by the power of knitters.

I'm also stunned by the outpouring of support from Dotty's and my real-life and online friends, and have more prizes to share out to everyone who donates! (Look to the left sidebar for links to how to donate!)

Susan, one of our knitting buddies at the Three Bags Full knit night, donated two gorgeous skeins of Koigu sock yarn!


Melissa, who lives in my favourite Australian city, Adelaide, is donating $25 AU of sock yarn from her store -- your choice! Do visit her blog, Stranded in Oz, to see her gorgeous hand-dyed yarn! (You can see a sample of her work below, but I'm sure it must be sold out by now, it's too beautiful to last!) Yet another reason to go back to Adelaide, besides the fact that my favourite cousins live in that beautiful city.


And Gabrielle, of the blog O.R.K. ... abroad, has offered not one but TWO beautiful books -- these will be two separate prizes. The first book is It Itches, by Franklin Habit, and the second book is My China - A Feast for All the Senses by Kylie Kwong. (Links are to the Amazon.com book descriptions if you want to find out more about the books.) She's an international import too -- moved from the UK to Vancouver to marry a guy, and I love the wedding photos on her blog. Congratulations to both of you, Gabrielle!

Also, I've put up a skein of Wollmeise on ebay, with all proceeds to be donated to Tony's Ride2Survive. It's going super high right now, with just one day to go! And I'm so grateful to the folks from Ravelry who are sending me a couple more skeins to go to more auctions on ebay and Tony's ride for the Canadian Cancer Society.

He went to a Ride2Survive meeting last week, and when he reported on how much money we've raised through this effort, there was an audible gasp in the room. I love it when people underestimate knitters!