And more prizes!

Regular blog readers may remember Michelle from San Diego, who came for a whirlwind visit of Vancouver and then met Dotty and me for dinner. (No, the three of us aren't related!)

Well, the news is that she emailed me to donate a few more prizes to the raffle ...

Two skeins of Malabrigo Laceweight yarn in the Blue Surf colourway.

Two skeins of green Himalaya Yarn Tibet Wool/Silk (300 yards, bulky yarn).

And a skein of Socks that Rock Lightweight in Dixie Chick!

Wow -- thank you so much, Michelle! This is so generous of you -- and I totally hope to see you again at Sock Summit next year. I'll bring the wine. ;-)

Ride2Survive Raffle -- more prizes!

Let me tell you about my friend Ro, who lives in Georgia. I met her a few years ago in a swap group on Ravelry, and she's one of the nicest people I've never met in person. She's witty, fun and raunchy, and she's incredibly generous, too.

Want some proof of her generosity?

She's donated three more gorgeous prizes to our raffle to help our husbands fundraise for the Canadian Cancer Society.

Two skeins of Crown Mountain Farms Sock Hop -- handspun yarn, in the colourway Spirit in the Sky.

A skein of Fiberphile Hand-dyed Merino/Cashmere/Nylon yarn in the colourway Willow 1.

One Anne Hanson Bee Fields shawl kit (link goes to the Knitspot website where you can see a finished shawl) which includes the pattern and a skein of Wooly Wonka Fibers Merino Laceweight yarn, in the colourway Tupelo Gold. Ro describes it as "a very soft, light green, semisolid, 2 ply laceweight merino."

Thank you so much, Ro -- these are gorgeous additions to the prize pool!

These will go into the raffle draw that we announced earlier this week. It's just $5 for an entry, and don't forget, if you donate $25, you also get entered to win quilts and hand-knit socks.

And if you'd like to help us out, please do spread the word about this raffle!

number 48

Pattern: No Purl Monkeys by CraftyPancakes
Yarn: Lana Grossa Meilenweit 100 Stile; col 8002; 1 skein (100g; 459 yds) with very little leftover
Needles: 2.5mm dpns
Notes: I seriously thought I would run out of yarn. Kinda surprising because these aren't very big. I loved the colour in the skein but I'm pretty meh about it knitted up. These socks are going into the Christmas gift pile.

On Saturday, I drove out to Langley with some friends to see a quilt show. There were two car loads - the slowpokes (they got kicked out of a quilt show because it was closing and they'd been there all day!) in one car and the speedier ones in another. I made a beeline for the vendors. Most shows, I look at the quilts first and then head to the vendors which I've discovered to be a poor plan because all the good stuff is sold out by the time I get there.


I got the very last Sweet William pattern and scooped up a huge stack of FQs - these pretty Japanese reds & assorted Japanese taupes. I also bought some cute potholders (currently MIA for this photo shoot) and when I showed them off during our coffee break (where we met up with the slowpokes), Nancy wanted a set for herself. But by the time she got to the boutique, they were sold out. The show was great - lots of inspiration. I will sort through my pics and post a few when I have time.

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.

I won the yarn lottery!

I'm spinning!!!


I bought a very basic drop spindle kit ages ago. On the very left is the very first yarn that I spun & plied. It's super chunky and not very even. I spun a bunch of singles and then put the spindle down for a couple of years. I found plying to be a bit tricky.


Until Karen told me about Andean plying. So I spun up the rest of the fleece that I had just so that I could try the plying. It works so well. I love it. The middle skein shows my first attempt at Andean plying. The right most skein was my second attempt. Now I have to figure out what to knit with my handspun. Does anyone have suggestions?

And the main reason why I'm spinning instead of knitting:


I think I'm going to run out of yarn. There's 18g left and the first sock weighs 48g. If the ball of yarn was slightly less than the stated 100g, I'm screwed.

So hubby came home the other night and I practically screamed at him that I won a yarn lottery (in one of the swap groups on Ravelry). The conversation went as follows:

me: I won the lottery on Ravelry. Guess what I won!
hubby: Wollmeise.
me: Yep. You're good. Guess what colour.
hubby: Purple.
me: ::blink, blink::

He is so well trained.

I am also well trained. We have a guest coming to stay with us and he's allergic to cats (don't as me why he agreed to stay here even after we told him that we have cats). Ricky's been sleeping on the guest bed. To break that habit, we're forcing him to find a new favourite sleeping spot. Shutting the door to the guest bedroom didn't really work the first night because hubby was sleeping there (temporarily until he stops snoring). Hubby couldn't stand the crying so he let Ricky in. The next night, hubby came back to our room but Ricky was banging at the guest bedroom door, crying, and scratching at the carpet. I yelled at him a few times and he went away but woke me up at 12:30am trying to break down the door so I got up and locked him downstairs. Ricky was ok for a few days but then he started sleeping on the chair in the office. The office is off limits to the cats at night - too many cables for them to chew on. So Ricky got booted out and the crying, etc. commenced. I couldn't stand it (hubby was already asleep) so I hauled the chair out of the office (Ricky almost made it onto the chair before I could pick it up) and put it in our bedroom. It's kinda awkward but I'm happy if the cat's happy. There's a new development though... Phoebe has discovered the chair and I caught her sleeping on it. Uh oh...


Ricky sez, "Phhhhbbbbtttt!!! I always get my way"

wet enough for webbed feet

This is Dotty reporting live from Chopper Kitty. There seems to be a problem just north of the water bowl. I see two cats squeezed onto the counter. I don't see any snarling while the second kitty waits for the first one to finish. This should clear up soon. Back to you, Bob.

I've been wanting to knit these Rubber Duck socks for awhile and have been searching for the perfect ducky yellow and a nice blue (for the water) sock yarn. A few weeks ago, I got lucky and bought 5 cones of undyed Louet Gems fingering and the stores were clearing out their Easter egg dyes. I broke out the glass bowls and vinegar and played around with some yarn. I used one tablet for each 50g skein and used the amount of vinegar specified on the package.


The blue turned out perfect. The yellow was much too canary. So I dissolved an orange tablet and used very little vinegar. I very quickly dunked each skein in hoping that the orange would soften the yellow without actually turning it orange. It worked out pretty well.

The weather's been pretty stormy lately. There was quite the downpour the other day and I noticed that water was cascading waterfall-like from the second floor gutter onto the roof of the first floor. So I made Hubby get on the roof the next morning (at 6am) to clear it out. All this poor weather has also delayed the roofers by at least a week.

There hasn't been a heck of a lot of knitting lately. I got one quilt basted and I'm machine appliquing the birdie blocks. I need to get those two quilts finished soon.


Phoebe sez, "Thanks for the mousie, Mom. It makes a nice pillow"