Spring Break, Short Updates and a Contest Winner

Back from vacation, taxes done, (almost) all caught up on school work!  I still have lots to do but I wanted to give you all an update and announce the contest winner.

Vacation was awesome.  We got to visit my mom, my cousins and my aunt and uncle.  We went to a Met's Spring Training game (shocker:  they lost), the adorable Brevard Zoo, Disney World, and the beaches.  It was great to see family and enjoy the wonderful warm weather for a change.

Here's some pictures from the trip:

Birthday Roses ♥ 

Mets before losing

Anteater!  I never knew how ...interesting... they look in real life!

Beautiful bird who became The Boy's best friend for a bit

Us ♥ 

The gators were HUGE! And looked fake but they'd move every now and then

On our way to Disney...probably before getting lost twice.  Never follow a GPS to Disney.  Never

This is how I amuse myself waiting to get to the parking tolls.

In Mickey's house...loved the mirrors!

The Haunted Mansion

The only characters we saw that weren't in a parade or you had to wait in line at their homes to see.  Seriously now?  Where were they all hiding??

Cinderella's castle!!

Amusing myself waiting in line for rides.  This is why the battery ran out so quick.  But definitely one of the best pictures of us I got.

Mickey and Minnie rose bushes in front of the castle

At the "photo op" station haha

I love the colored lights on the castle at night

Except it gets to look a little creepy in some colors

Also, I got enough gift cards for my birthday to finally get a new camera!  Isn't she beautiful?  And blue of course :o)

Now that I've got a camera, I can take awesome pictures like these:

Yes, these are just a few of the crazy things we do at Starbucks.  Surprisingly, they have yet to kick us out.

Now that I've tortured you long enough, here's what you're all really waiting for...

The winner of the Birthday Contests iiiiissssss:

***Dianna***

aka KnitaSaur

Congrats Dianna!  Dianna is the winner of a skein of loooovely Malabrigo Lace from Flocks of Yarn, along with some other little goodies.  Dianna- Please let me know which color skein you'd like (Bobby Blue or Paris Night) as well as your snail mail address so I can send your package!!

Check back tomorrow for info about last night's Brooklyn Blogger Meetup!

Happy Green Day!

There is no school today for the district I sub in.  Really, who schedules a conference day for St. Patrick's Day??  But for me that means I get to be Irish for the day and go to the St. Patrick's Day Parade!  I've never been before so this should be exciting :o).  I'll try to take some pictures depending if I can even see anything.  The march goes up 5th Avenue starting in midtown and going uptown just after the Met.  If you want more info on the NYC parade click here.  Or you can watch it on NBC and look for me in the crowd!  Too bad I don't have a green jacket...or hat...or scarf...or gloves.  I might stand out a bit from the crowd haha.

** Don't forget to enter the birthday giveaway!!

NLC Update: Buttons

Buttons have been the hardest part of this cardigan, by far.  I can't find any in stores that I like (seriously why do Michael's and A.C. Moore have so many kitschy buttons and no actual useful buttons???).  Then I was reading this post from Never Not Knitting and decided to check out where she got her buttons.  They came from Tangled Yarns.

I just started searching through all the wonderful buttons available and oh my gosh actually found the perfect buttons!

Are they not the most perfect color for my cardigan???

Until I realized they were $3 per button.  Ok, maybe I can swing that.  And then I saw it was from an Australian store.  Frickin-A there goes that idea.  $12 for buttons (I'd use 1 less since they're bigger than the buttons called for) is already a stretch for me but then add on international shipping?  I don't think that's such a good idea given my employment situation these days.  What do you guys think??

*PS* Don't forget to enter my birthday giveaway!

Birthday Giveaway!

So my birthday is officially less than 2 weeks away now and what better way to celebrate turning 25 than to have a giveaway?  Now since it's a birthday giveaway, I'm not going to tell everything that's going into the package.  There's nothing better than a good birthday surprise after all.

What I will tell you for now is that the winner will get to choose between the two Malabrigo Lace's I ordered from Flocks of Yarn.  (I'm stealing pics from the site since they look much better than the ones I took...hopefully my birthday means a new camera for me!)



On the left is "Paris Night" and on the right is "Bobby Blue."  I couldn't choose which one to use to make Citron so I'm letting you choose for me :o)

There will be other goodies, but we'll save that for a surprise.  I'll probably cave and dish eventually, but for now I'm keeping it a secret.

How can you enter?  Oh, so many ways.  I enjoy blogs that give you multiple ways to enter so I'm definitely offering that.  You earn 1 entry for each of the following that you do:

1. Comment on the blog.  Since I already picked Rebekkah's name, tell me your favorite type of cake to have for your birthday (or other treat).
2. Send an email to crookedknits@gmail.com telling me about your favorite birthday memory.
3. Follow me on twitter @crookedknits (send a direct message after so I know you did it for the contest).
4. Find me on Ravelry!  Again, name is crookedknits, easy enough (same thing- send a message so I know you want the entry and you can do this if you're already my friend there too)

Entries are due by 11:59 pm March 26th.  I'll be leaving for Florida then, but the winner will be chosen when I return after Easter.

Good luck everyone!

I Smell Coffee!!

On my way out the door the other day there was a box for me down in the vestibule.  I opened it up to find:

A beautiful ball of yarn from my Magic Yarn Ball Swap

The group has be planning and hiding and wrapping for about 2 months.  The gist:  you hand wrap the skein into a ball, all the while hiding little (or not) treats inside.  Depending on the price of the yarn and goodies, some people got tons of little things, or just a few big things.

Here's what I sent out to dovely:

Lots of little goodies

Wrapping it up

I of course didn't think of taking pictures of things before or during wrapping up.  But here's what I sent:  a group of stitch markers from my soon to be shop (each wrapped individually for more things to open), a Bridgewater candle, a Soap Rocks soap, a mini Camille Beckman lotion, needle connectors/tip protectors, row counter, jeweled notebook.  I think that was everything.  I was able to put extras in because I got a couple things at the card store (yay employee discount!).  

Back to my package.  Here's what BlueLatitude sent me:  

The yarn is from Fearless Fibers in the colorway Feel the Love.  It's 80% superwash merino, 10% cashmere, and 10% nylon.

As soon as I opened the box I smelled it:  yummy coffee aroma wafted up at me.  Unfortunately, I had to wait until the next evening to unwrap the ball and find it.

There's someone hiding in my yarn!

As you can see, I started getting bored unwrapping the yarn so I had a little photoshoot with my sheep.

Finally got it all unwrapped and balled up (more on that in a bit).  The coffee (smells delish) is Outpost Rost Coffee Organic Bay View Brew.

Yay for coffee and yay yay for it being organic!  Sweet :o).  My swapee is from Wisconsin and I guess cheese wasn't going to ship well in the yarn.  I like coffee more than I like cheese so it's all good with me.  The yarn is so so amazing feeling and the most perfect blend of reds.  I think Gillian (BlueLatitude) was hoping I'd knit some socks (and I did queue some from Ravelry) but I think this ball of stubborn wonderfulness wants to be the Land of Oz Shawl.  I had been so excited about making a purchase from Flocks of Yarn that I didn't take the time the check gauges and totally intended my Malabrigo Lace for that.  I'm not a shawl or lace knitter so I can't even explain what I was thinking for that.  I do have a project for the Malabrigo but my Oz Shawl has been waiting to be made.  I haven't decided yet though.  Any thoughts?

Back to the Fearless Fibers yarn...  What a bitch!  I officially don't like sock yarn.  Between this skein and the Knit One Crochet Too I used for Tijah's argyle hat I'm a little put off.  Maybe it's me.  Maybe it's the ball winder.  But I just could not get this stuff to stay on the damn winder!  It took me forever to get it wound and it's still not wound in as tight of a ball as I would like.  

There's my little sheep friend snuggling up in the loosely wound ball.

I actually think it's the ball winder.  I feel like the piece the yarn winds around is so thick that there's always such a big hole in the middle of my balls.  Guess ya just gotta make do with what ya got right?

Before today, I was going to use naming the little sheep as part of my birthday giveaway (hint hint- coming up so keep an eye out).  But I decided to name my little sheep friend Rebekkah.  I was listening to some Stitch It Podcast episodes (I've been listening from old to new marathon style) and Meghan kept saying the name Rebecca and it just stuck.  I like my spelling because it's traditional but with a kick (the extra "k").  I love this name.  So now I have a little sheep named Rebekkah.  Funny though, when I was trying to figure out if this was actually a spelling of the name I googled it and was sent here.  The name means "to bind."  Ha.