The joys of blogging

Every now and again, I am reminded of what a fabulous community we have here in the crafting blogosphere. You are all such a lovely bunch of people and I'm so glad I've had the opportunity to get to know you all through the blogs we write.

Things like this...

...which I was awarded last week by Kepanie, and awarded again on Saturday by Emma over at Knit One, Stitch One, Save One?. Thank you for your lovely comments too!

The way we reach out to help each other is also great, whether it's more trivial "I'm stuck with this pattern" sort of help, or the kind, supportive comments we leave on posts which are about more difficult issues. There is something very sincere about it all, which is just wonderful.

My most recent experience of how fabulous this community can be comes from Kate over at Good Purl Gone Bad. Kate is one of the bloggers in the Year of Projects, and as part of that has crocheted a couple of amazing Babette blankets:

Photo copyright Kate Aston

When posting about her most recent one, she threw in a sentence at the end wondering what to do with all her leftovers, and would anyone fancy doing a swap for them. I immediately sent her a message to say "me! me! I'll take your leftovers" and over the last week we have been discussing exactly which yarn she wants in exchange.

The parcels winged their way through the postal system and I am now the happy owner of this gorgeous pile of cotton scraps:

I have diligently weighed them all and added them to my stash on Ravelry. In exchange for this fantastic rainbow of cotton, I sent Kate this gorgeous skein of Lornas Laces Shepherd Sock:

I can't wait to see what she does with it!


Don't forget, my giveaway is still open! Please go and check it out if you haven't already.

Celebratory Giveaway!!!

I'm having a rather overdue celebration on the blog today. Before we get drawn into the giveaway details, I just wanted to give a quick shout out to Kepanie over at Knitspiring Odyssey, who was ever so kind to award me this yesterday:

Thank you so much for the recognition and for the lovely things you had to say about me and my blog! It really is very much appreciated.

Now, on to the giveaway! I've hit and passed several blogging milestones in the last couple of months, and threatened you all with a giveaway a couple of times. The most recent three milestones have been getting over 100 followers (I love you all!), writing over 300 posts and garnering over 30,000 pageviews. I even managed to catch this snapshot showing me hitting two out of the three back in May

On to the prizes then... up first is a brand spanking new ball of Zauberball sock yarn in a fabulous blue-black colourway.

For some reason my phone uploaded it sideways!

I had a bit of a tired brain moment, and managed to order myself a colour I already had! So rather than return it I thought I'd spread the love and offer it up for a prize!

Because I'm celebrating so many milestones, I thought more than one prize was in order. So here's prize number two!

Two skeins of Knit Picks Shadow Tonal laceweight yarn. I originally bought this yarn way back at the start of the first Year of Projects, but after struggling to knit my Easy Lace Stole out of it all year, I finally bit the bullet and frogged the project. The yarn was soaked and reskeined, albeit in two separate hanks. So now it looks like this:

Colour far more accurate in the first photo

So it's one whole, untouched skein (50g) and two half-skeins (approx 25g each).

Now for the rules.

I am going to run two separate draws, one for each yarn. So there'll be two winners. I will leave the contest open until the 30th August 2012, and will post the winners on Friday 31st August. Any comments left as entries after midnight (GMT) on 30th August will not be counted.

I am willing to post internationally, so anyone can enter. I know quite a few of my readers live on the other side of the pond and I don't want to leave you guys out!

To enter, please leave a comment stating which yarn you would like to win (feel free to enter both draws!), where in the world you are (no need to be more specific than country) and how I can contact you should you win (e.g. rav name or blog address).

Good luck!

Spreading the Love

Last week, while I was still recovering from my holiday and not really paying an awful lot of attention to the real world, the lovely Natalie over at Misadventures in Craft was kind enough to share some love and award my blog with the Liebster Award.

This award originated in Germany (liebster being a German word meaning dear/sweet/darling/beloved) and the aim is to bring more attention to blogs with fewer than 200 followers, that recipients of the award believe are well worth a look.

There are of course rules to accepting:

1. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.

Well, I will do more than just dump a link in my opening sentence, and I will urge you all now to go and visit Natalie if you don't already follow her. As she said on her post awarding this to me, I am her crochet alter ego, and we seem to have waaay to much in common for two random folks who met on the internet less than a year ago! Quite often I read posts on her blog and think "I could have written that almost word for word", and comparing our boards on Pinterest (here and here) really demonstrates the weird similarities.

2. Reveal your top five picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.

Only choosing five out of the many blogs I read is a tricky task, so I'm going to do something a little unexpected. Not all of my picks will be crafting blogs!

In Search of the Happiness Max is the blog of my old university friend Ro Smith, who writes about writing. As well as writing about her own writing (she has just finished the first proper draft of her first proper novel, and has had several short stories published in genre fiction magazines), she posts regular reviews of awesome genre telly and books; currently she is working her way through the new series of Torchwood and Doctor Who, and is posting read-a-long posts for George R.R. Martin's A Dance With Dragons. Please go on over and check her out.

Sarah Cawkwell's Blog is, as you might have guessed, the blog of an old LRPing friend of mine, Sarah Cawkwell. Sarah is also a writer, and her first bona fide published novel is coming out in December. Sarah writes for the Black Library, the publishing arm of Games Workshop. Her blog isn't all about the writing though, she often posts very entertaining stories of her adventures with her Dearly Beloved and Small Son (seriously, if nothing else you should check out the story of her trip to Ireland for a friend's wedding). Her posts on why she isn't missing LRP this year will also go a long way to balance out my over-enthusiasm for the hobby!

Scars Inside is a relatively new blog set up by Chrissy from Stitched Together, where she documents her everyday struggle of living with a disability in a country (the UK) whose current government not-spending policies seem designed to make her life even more difficult than it already is. Reading this blog will make you want to stand up and shout for the rights of the disabled as loudly as they are trying to shout. I urge you to go take a look, and to have a read through her blogroll over there as well, as she links up to quite a few other excellent blogs on similar topics.

And now some craft blogs, because that's what most of you are here for, right?

Writing, Yarn, Pucks and Diapers is the blog of the lovely Contessa out in California. A fellow Year of Projects blogger, Contessa writes not just about knitting and crochet, but makes her own jewellery and stitch markers, as well as her regular "Caturday" feature on Saturdays.

Knitting Kitties is a blog everyone should visit. Denise lives in Tuscon, Arizona with her partner Duane and many rabbits, cats and birds. In February of this year, Duane was admitted to hospital with a mystery illness, and spent a very long time in ICU. He is home now, and still recovering, and life has been incredibly difficult for them all over the last six months. Denise's continued strength and resilience in the face of everything that has happened to them is incredibly inspiring, and I know she really appreciates every kind word and comment left on her blog. Her knitting and cross stitching is pretty awesome as well.

3. Post the award on your blog.

Well, here's a massive post I've just written about it, and the award itself is now sitting neatly with the others in my sidebar on the right. I think I've discharged my duties well enough on this one! I'm just glad I didn't have to come up with five or seven random facts about myself that you didn't already know, because that's quite tricky!

Happy Monday!

Usually Monday is a gloomy day. The start of the week. Back in work after an excellent weekend. Nothing to look forward to except five long, dull days working before the next excellent weekend.

Not so today! Today has been made of win. Let me take you through all the wonderful things today has brought.

Firstly, I woke to my email from the ACCA confirming I had passed both exams I sat back in June. I am now a fully qualified accountant and I never have to sit another exam again!

Big celebrations here.
Well, there would be, if Jamie were here.

So I started out my day in a really good mood.

But wait, what was that email below my ACCA results? Why, it was from Marie over at Underground Crafter, letting me know I had won one of her week of giveaways! I've never won a giveaway before so I am very excited. My prize is a 2012 crochet pattern calendar featuring several of Marie's designs.

Then I headed into work, and found a message in my Ravelry inbox from Charlotte over at An Accidental Knitter, encouraging me to check out her latest blog post. Turns out, she had been awarded one of those viral blog awards, and had in turn awarded it to me!

So the smile I already had on my face got wider. Imagine how wide it got, when later on in the day again, I was reading through my blogroll and saw that after being awarded the above by Charlotte, Keri over at When Did I Become A Knitter had also awarded it to me!

I was definitely feeling the love.

As a final added bonus to the awesomeness of my day so far, I spotted a link on Peppermint Mocha Mama's twitter feed this afternoon bringing my attention to the fact you could download the Interweave Knits Accessories 2009 e-zine for 10 cents. Yep, ten whole cents. That's seven pence in UK terms at today's exchange rates. Who wouldn't want to take advantage of that?

62 patterns for 10 cents.

Still not convinced? Check out the patterns included on the e-zine's Ravelry page. I've already queued several patterns, including these fingerless mitts (available for download for $5.50!), Koolhaas by Jared Flood ($4.50 to download individually), this lovely Arrowhead shawl (ok, that one's free), these rib and cable socks (only available in an old Interweave magazine from 2005) and these awesome subway mittens ($3.50 for download). So even if I only do those five patterns, that's $13.50 worth of pattern I've bought for ten cents.

I loves me a bargain!

And if all that wasn't enough to make me really smile, the massive outpouring of love I've had from the cat this evening has been the icing on the cake. See, Jamie's already headed down to the site of the LRP event we're at this weekend (all that responsibility of being one of the folks that helps run the game) so it's just me and the cat for a couple of days. Since Jamie is usually working from home, Fidget gets very used to having company during the day. He's really missed his Daddy today, so I'm getting extra cuddles this evening.

Oh, one more thing before I go. I'm off at the event for a week from Wednesday, so I've scheduled a couple of posts for while I'm away (fingers crossed they all work just fine). I'm adding a poll to the sidebar now, but it won't make sense to you till Sunday's Year of Projects post! I'll look forward to reading all of your posts when I get back on Tuesday.

100th Post - Stylish Blogger Award

Wow, I didn't think I'd get to my first milestone this quickly! I've only been writing this blog since the end of December last year, so in six months I've racked up 100 posts and over 60 followers! Thank you all for reading!

In celebration of 100 posts, I have something a little different for you this afternoon.

Say what you like about the origins of this sort of viral blog-listings (I've read several posts/articles in previous months about how evil they supposedly are), but wherever they started, what they are now are a great way of paying a lovely compliment to fellow bloggers, and inviting our readers to check out other blogs they may not have seen before.

Imagine my surprise, then, when not six months into my blogging journey, and I have been awarded the Stylish Blogger Award by Kristine over at Ambassador Crochet.

I'm flattered that my small corner of blogland could be considered stylish, and am going to do my best to find seven equally stylish blogs to nominate!

I believe I am also supposed to share seven facts about myself, but since I'm in the middle of a 30 day blogging challenge with the chosen subject of "Me", I don't think I'm going to bother with the seven facts. Just click on the A to Z icon in the sidebar to bring up all my A to Z challenge posts and read through those!

So on to my nominations then. Seven Stylish Blogs from my blogroll...

1. Stitched Together - Chrissy's was one of the first blogs I started reading last year. I love reading her posts, her projects are beautiful and with her recent blog re-naming, I think she definately qualifies as a stylish blogger.

2. Mixed Martial Arts and Crafts - Vanessa's blog is great! Colourful and fun. I love reading her interviews with other crafters and designers.

3. Gingerbread Girl - Carole's blog is definately stylish. Lovely projects, great photos and I just adore her header.

4. Mooncalf Makes - sewing, cross-stitch and some lovely knitting. Mooncalf's writing is great too!

5. Susie F. Handmade - Susie's blog never fails to put a smile on my face. And after following her for a while, I am now determined to give making my own soap a try!

6. Useless Beauty Designs - love this blog. Worth it for Susie's Mum's guest blog alone.

7. Misadventures In Craft - another great blog from another lovely lady. I think I am drawn to this one because the author is the same age as me, lives nearby and we seem to have very similar tastes!