The winner is...

Lizzie from Lizzie's Loose Ends. She entered my Airplane Knitting Contest and can be grateful that the first name drawn didn't have a contact email/blog and I haven't heard from them since I posted their name (twice)!

So, Lizzie, I have emailed you via your blog to let you know, and am just waiting to hear from you with your address.

Here's a photo of one more thing I slipped in the envelope today...

an I-cord bracelet knitted from silver wire and beads.

And this is what I won

As a perfect follow-up to my last post, this is what arrived in the mail today. It's a very sturdy, colourful bag made from folded candy wrappers that I won from Nan in a previous contest. I can't imagine how many hours this took to make. I shall use it with pride and I'm sure it will attract many curious looks!

My kids and I had fun spotting the tiny bits of writing and logos on the wrappers.

Thanks Nan!

PS: I forgot to mention that if you read about her contest here and you go and enter, please mention my name because then I get an extra chance to win!

Nannybird is giving things away again

Nannybird is having her 222nd blog entry contest, and you can win a $25 gift certificate to the hobby store of your choice. Wouldn't THAT be worth winning?!

To enter, you need to go here and leave a comment, telling her what your six word philosophy of life is and why. If you have a blog, then post about it for another chance to win.

You have until April 19th to enter.

Contest winner - please show yourself

I posted last week that the winner of my little prize for the airplane knitting was Noble Retrievers, but I haven't heard from them. There was no contact information so I'm relying on that person emailing me.

If I haven't heard anything in the next few days, I'll pick another name...one that has a contact email or blog where I can leave a comment.

Yesterday I really felt like Spring was here - I was doing my housework and went outside to take something to the garbage can, and the sun felt hot. (The temperature was about 13 degrees Celsius!) The back of my house faces south, so it's quite a suntrap. Later I did a couple of loads of laundry and I decided to hang it out on the clothesline. It dried well, and the showers that threatened on the horizon never made it as far as my house.

I love drying clothes outside - it's so pleasant walking down through the fruit and nut trees to the spot where I have my rotary dryer set up. And I have the added bonus that it's free and environmentally friendly!

Contest results

March 31st was the deadline for my airplane knitting contest. I have drawn the winner at random from the list of commenters.

The winner is Noble Retrievers, but I don't have any contact info for that person so I hope they are still reading the blog regularly and will see this post.

So, Ms/Mr Winner, please email me at veganpal02 AT gmail DOT com with your mailing address so I can send you your prize.

I still haven't decided what I'll be knitting on the plane to the UK but I still have a few weeks to plan. Right now, I have to buy yarn (HAVE to) because I am going to a workshop on Sunday - THE Cat Bordhi is leading a full day class in making her moebius scarf - special cast on and all.

Another contest for you

Nannybird is still generously offering prizes in another of her series of contests. Head on over and enter her latest and say I sent you!

A kind friend even designed this pretty button for her and if you publish it on your blog you get an extra entry.

It's about time I caught up...

Here's a reminder that I have a contest running right now - if you look at the top right of our home page, you'll see a link to click on where I'm asking for ideas for airplane knitting. I never did tell anyone what the prize was, so here's a photo of what I have collected so far. Some small chocolate squares, some flower seeds, and some earrings that I made this evening from silver wire and glass beads. I will be on the lookout for any other small items I can tuck into the padded envelope.

The contest is still open for entries and the deadline will be March 31st.

I haven't posted for over a week, I think. There just don't seem to be enough hours in the day. My head is full of thoughts of Taekwondo, trying to memorise the material I need for my test next month. I need to practise every day. I'm going to classes three nights a week.

Since Sunday, when R and I spent a lot of time in the garden, picking up and bundling fruit tree prunings and clearing out old fallen leaves from last fall, I am feeling the pull to be outside each day. The sun has been shining - it was up to 16 degrees Celsius today - and it is so calming being outside, raking up leaves, pulling up dead stalks and making things look tidier. My yard is quite low maintenance. Most of it is lawn, which I have no problem mowing during the summer (takes an hour and a half with the gas mower). It'll be a while before I have to do that. In front of my house, there's a bed with lilies and hostas and ferns which come up by themselves every year. Behind the house is a bed that always looks messy but the lavender is taking it over year by year. At the moment, there are some tulips on their way out.

Further down the yard is another large bed which will be full of shasta daisies and lilies, but I'm not sure what else will pop up in there later in the year as I have put in lots of flowers in the past but they often get strangled by weeds - I'm not a keen gardener as a rule, and weeding is usually only done in our vegetable patch by R on weekends.

I think I may take out the rocks that edge this bed and if it gets too untidy I can just mow over it! (Oooh, I can sense Heather shuddering!)

R has been ordering seeds and some arrived in the mail today. He's the one in charge of that side of things - he has enjoyed gardening since he was a child and spent a lot of time in his greenhouse (that was probably a good way to get away from his two older brothers)! So he knows what he's doing.

So I had this long list of things I would have liked to get done today but few of them actually did get done. Part of the problem may be that I was finishing off The Eagles Brood by Jack Whyte. This is the third in the Dream of Eagles series - The Skystone was first, followed by The Singing Sword. These novels were recommended to me by a friend and they are excellent, full of historical detail. Very violent though, as no doubt it was 1600 years ago in Britain. Being engrossed in a 600 page book is not conducive to getting things done either.

It's the Vernal Equinox (or the Autumnal Equinox if you're in the southern hemisphere) so we now have 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night. We don't celebrate Easter in our house. I was brought up by parents who only went to church for weddings and funerals, so Easter to me meant chocolate Easter eggs. That's it, no egg hunts or Easter bunnies or church services.

This year I am celebrating Ostara, the pagan sabbat, in a very informal way at home. I have been interested to read that the egg hunts and the bunnies are both based in pagan lore, representing fertility. So I'm thinking I may get the boys making papier mache eggs (vegan of course) which we can paint. And we plan to make some lemon poppyseed cookies, seeds being very important at this time of year.

That's it for now - be back soon!

Ideas please

I will be travelling to Britain in a few months and will be spending a long time on a plane. A LONG time! Three flights in all, two short ones and ten hour one. And then I have to do it all in reverse two weeks later.

So I’m looking for ideas for something to knit on those lovely ten hour flights, and while sitting in airports, waiting. It seems to be hard to find specific rules for UK airports, but I thought I’d take some wooden knitting needles (home made from dowels). After all, they can’t be considered any more dangerous than a pencil! The question is....what shall I knit?

The project (or projects) needs to be something that I can pick up and put down easily, so preferably no pencil and paper required, or referring to a complex pattern. Nothing that will need lots of colour changes as I won’t be able to take scissors on the plane. But not so easy that I get bored with it quickly.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find a suitable airline-friendly project for me. Links are good. Type of yarn doesn’t matter, as long as I can substitute it for something vegan (non-animal fibre). But nothing felted, as I don't use wool.

I intend to put together a mini-prize for a winner, drawn at random from the list of ideas. Tell your friends, mention it on your blog! It won't be specifically a knitting prize, so non-knitters will enjoy it too, and I will mail anywhere in the world. I'm picturing a little box, filled with little treasures. I will start collecting things soon.

Leave your comments on this post - I will put a link to it at the top of the sidebar so others can find it easily.


Raw Score:
Monday 90% (yay)

The booty...

Here's what Karen won from me in our Equinox giveaway. She may have to wait a few weeks to enjoy it all, though, as she lives in Australia!

Ready to Go

This is my design for organizing hand sewing needles that incorporates some hand embroidery on linen and some scrappy quilted goodness on the inside. I may make some changes on the next one I make. We'll see after I get feedback on this one from its new owner and giveaway winner, Jacqueline.

I laid out all the goodies that will be heading to Jacqueline this week. The apron made from a thrifted vintage tablecloth, the thrifted vintage notions, some autumn coloured fat quarters, a handsewn velvet apple pincushion (because the valley where I live is known for its orchards), the needlebook and some dark chocolate. Congratulations, Jacqueline! Hope you enjoy these sewing bits and pieces as much as I enjoyed gathering and making them to give away.

The winners!

The draw has been done and the results are:

Heather's home-canned goodies go to MARY-SUE

Katherine's apron and sewing notions go to JACQUELINE

Samantha's yarn and chocolate go to AMY of Of Larks and Wrens blog

Nicola's knitted fingerless mitts, yarn and other bits and pieces go to KAREN of And so, I sew blog

The winners have been notified. We had a lot of fun with this and hope that some of you who found our blog through the contest will stick around and continue to read what we have to say!

Today's the day

Thanks to everyone who has been visiting our blog this week, especially those who have been leaving comments and entering our contest. Noon today our time (BC, Canada) is the deadline so as I write this at 7am there isn't long to wait to find out who the winners are.

One commenter questioned whether I'd ship to Germany. Yes, three of us are willing to ship anywhere in the world. The exception is Heather, because she is giving away home-grown produce, fresh or canned, that can't go in the mail!

We are celebrating the Equinox today (a little early I know, according to my astronomy calendar the exact moment of the sun crossing the equator is around 5am Sunday). As well as drawing the winners for our blog contest, we are getting together with other friends for a harvest potluck lunch, children's crafts and a walk in the woods.

I hope that wherever you live, you are appreciating the change of the seasons and the cycle of the year.

Eat Local, Shop Local....Win Local???

I was hoping to get time to make something crafty to give away but, with our garden harvest in full swing, that just isn't going to happen. So here is what I came up with for my part of the contest. My family has been making an effort to keep as much of our food as local as possible (preferably out of our own yard) and to support local businesses with our shopping that we do need to do. So, with that theme in mind, my prize will be either something from here or something from here.
( this is my own "cupboard under the stairs" and I think it is rather nicer than the one Harry had to endure. In a few more weeks it will be full to bursting and I quite like the Little House in the Big Woods feeling that it gives me)

And here is the catch...to enter you also have to be local. I will deliver to anyone in this city or if you know me, or someone I know, then we could probably try to make arrangements to get it to you if you live nearby. (say if you are part of the group of homelearners that lives north of us) So if you are interested then leave a comment saying what you love about where we live or what you have been doing to make your diet more local.

And c'mon, did you really think I would be willing to part with any of my chocolate?

One more thing...

Just wanted to say that all who leave their comments this week for the contest will need to check back after the Friday noon deadline, as we will be publishing the names of the winners and they will need to email me privately with their addresses (email address will be given out later).

Giveaway Goodies from Katherine

I already mentioned that I would include this handmade apron in my giveaway box...
Now here's a sneak peek at some of the items (there will be some surprise items added to fill the box) I'm including as a thank-you to our readers.

Some vintage, some thrifted, some handmade along with some chocolate for creative energy and all with autumn as the colour theme ;o)

To be entered to win these items, please leave a comment telling me -"What inspires you?". Remember, if you refer others to our blog to leave a comment, have them let us know you sent them here and you get extra chances to win.

*I'll ship this worldwide, so no matter where you live, please enter the giveaway.

** Draw date is Friday September 21st - so get your comments in before noon PST on that date.

The Contest is finally here!

Dear Readers,

This weekend, you will finally discover what all the hint-dropping has been about. Each of us will be offering something to you as a Thank You for reading our blog. All you have to do to win one of the four "prizes" is to leave a comment on each of the four contest posts.

I am not going to tell you exactly what is in the box I have filled, though this post of mine should give you a hint. Yes, those bamboo handwarmers are in there. And yarn. Here's another clue...

Something beaded
Something new
Something knitted
Something blue

To win this box of goodies, please leave a comment on this post. I want you to tell me what is your favourite thing to do in the fall. Leave your comment by noon our time (Pacific) on Friday September 21st. And tell your friends - if you have a blog, feel free to mention our contest and tell people to say who they heard it from - that way you'll get more chances to win!