…listed below. The draw was done last weekend in a highly scientific manner – names of all the entries were printed out, cut into individual pieces, folded up, placed in a bag and my husband then picked out 7 tickets. The same was done with the prizes and the first name out won the first prize out, second name got the second prize etc. Three people had two tickets pulled out of the bag but one of those asked that one of the prizes be put back and another ticket drawn.

So the names and prizes as they came out of the bag are -

• Susanne who blogs at http://suse-dol-amroth.livejournal.com wins the stitch markers donated by ShelbyB
• Kathryn wins the sock kit donated by Amanda at The Natural Dye Studio and she also wins a Kool Aid Dye Kit donated by Bright Dyes
• Nic who blogs at www.talesfromtheplain.blogspot.com wins a Kool Aid Dye kit from Bright Dyes
• Sue from my knitting group in Marlow wins 2 skeins of yarn from my stash (to be decided on – this replaces the sari silk which was withdrawn as a prize)
• Melanie wins the Apeldoorn sock yarn donated by Sonja at Thank Ewe

• Glynis wins the 2 skeins of Bealtain yarn donated by Jo at Celtic Memory Yarns
• Lisa blogs at www.saratogaknitting.blogspot.com wins a Forget Me Knot pattern from Noni Patterns and also the Opal sock yarn from my stash.
• Mary who blogs at www.silverbellsallinarow.blogspot.com wins the Fleece Artist “Parrot” yarn donated by Get Knitted
• Kaedekat wins the Fleece Artist “Hercules” donated by Get Knitted
• Sally A who blogs at www.xanga.com/miserycord wins the Rowan Pure Wool pattern book.
• Roo who blogs at www.rooknitting.blogspot.com wins the “Indigo Plus” sock yarn from The Yarn Yard. This was rather fitting as it was Ruth who introduced me to The Yarn Yard when she was my swap partner in Sockret Pal and it was Natalie at The Yarn Yard who donated this skein of yarn and gave me the idea to run this prize draw.

• Dianne blogs at www.randomknitter.blogspot.com wins 2 skeins of “Sorbet” sock yarn donated by Dee at Posh Yarns.

• Sally, who has a Ravelry page at www.ravelry.com/projects/sallyjoy81, wins a Forget Me Knot pattern from Noni Patterns
• Michael Woelfel wins the Scarf Kit donated by Art of Yarn. I have sent several emails to Michael to inform him that he has won but had no response. If you’re reading this then please contact me as I need your address to send the prize.
• Helen Kilcoin from Putney blogs at easystitcher.blogdrive.com wins the Fleece Artist “Tiger” donated by Get Knitted

Finally, I want to say a really big THANK YOU to everyone who donated and helped me to raise over £300 from the Prize Draw. In total, since last June, I have raised over £1,600 for breast cancer charities and this is way beyond my original target of £1,000.



Prize Draw £307.64

Moonwalk £667.03

Sale of knitted items & phone charms £238.00

Thames Trail Walk £212.30

Sales on eBay/Carboot £192.81

Total £1,617.78



THANKS!!

technorati tags:breakthrough, prize, draw, raffle

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Since I started up my prize draw for Breakthrough and blogged about my Moonwalk efforts I’ve been constantly amazed at the generosity and willingness to help of the knit-blog community.

The swift responses to my pleas for prizes, the number of entries in the draw (nearly 300 at the moment- still 10 days to enter) and the other bloggers/webmasters who have plugged the draw on their blogs and linked back here.

So, thanks to everyone and here’s another knit-blogger doing her bit –

Dorothy, who blogs at Knitting stuff and going on and on is raising money for the Canadian Cancer Society by walking in the Relay for Life on the weekend of June 8th. She is also offering prizes on her blog for every $10 (that’s canadian dollars) pledged and she has some lovely prizes on offer.

Go check it out.

technorati tags:cancer, prize, draw, raffle

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This is a long blog post as I’ve got loads of news to catch up on…

I promised more photos and full story on the Moonwalk last weekend. This week I’ve been feeling jet-lagged from missing a night’s sleep but otherwise fine – no aches and pains which is good.

This is mum and I with our medals in Hyde Park around 7.30 Sunday morning.

Ive been feeling jet-lagged all week but otherwise ok, no aches and pains to speak of so the training was worth it! I’ve collected around £560 from sponsorship which I’m really pleased with. The event was good but I didn’t enjoy it as much as when I took part 3 years ago. This year there were 15,000 entrants – nearly 3 times as many as 2004 – and that is just too many.

We never got clear of crowds and so were unable to get a good power-walk pace going, you were constantly having to slow, overtake and worst of all stop completely to wait to cross roads. This happened 3 times in the first 5 miles and at one point we had to wait for 14 minutes before we could get across, each time you were just getting a good pace you had to stop, get cold and then get your pace going again.

I don’t think either mum or I will do this event again, we will definitely do some more power-walking but we’ll find other events or plan our own and get sponsorship for Breakthrough.

Which reminds me – still time to take part in my prize draw! And tell your friends about it, link on your blog, put up a poster ….whatever.

Knitting News

I’ve finished my first crochet project – ever!! It’s a simple granny square cot quilt in Rowan Handknit Cotton DK, I love the bright colours.

I have loads more of this yarn as I purchased the quantities to crochet a full size blanket and only made a cot quilt so I may do some more crochet with the remainder. This quilt is a baby gift for a friend so I’m glad I got it finished in time. The baby is due in the summer and I wanted to make something summery – a bright cotton quilt seemed suitable and I’m really pleased with how it turned out.

I knit these super-quick this week, they are knit to a basic top-down pattern from The Natural Dye Studio in their Alpaca/Silk sock yarn. Amanda from Natural Dye Studio is running a competition for the Sock Yarn Club members to submit a photo for the cover of her pattern.

J is going to take some photos tomorrow for me to submit to Amanda – hopefully we may get some sunshine.

This is more Natural Dye Studio knitting –

A lace shawl in cobweb mohair in a lovely purple shade. The pattern is the Melon pattern shawl/scarf from Victorian Lace Today and I’m knitting this as a wedding present. I’ve only got a couple of weeks to get it done but it’s knitting up pretty quick. So far I’ve done 18 pattern repeats (out of 62) and I only cast on yesterday. It’s a 6 row repeat pattern over 10 sts and very easy to memorise.

Finally some of the many birds living in my garden –

This is one of a pair of wrens who often visit my patio – they spent a couple of hours this afternoon hopping round in this bush right outside my lounge chirping very loudly at each other. The picture isn’t brilliant as it was taken through the glass of the french windows.

Another visitor was this starling who perched on the table on the patio outside the lounge. Today we’ve been cutting the grass and doing some tidying out in the garden and also seen robins (they always come to see what we’re doing in the garden) a green woodpecker, the collared doves who nest in a bush in the garden and on Thursday a sparrowhawk which came and landed on the sundial/bird bath. Possibly the same one which killed a pigeon on our lawn a few months ago (see J’s photo on his blog here)

technorati tags:crochet, cot-quilt, sock, knitting, wren, starling, moonwalk

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Here’s my medal to prove it -

More pics and full story later, had no sleep from when I got up at 8.30 Saturday morning till I got back to my mums house at around 10 Sunday morning and I had an hours nap on her spare bed. Got about 9 hours last night but off to work now so just a quick post and I will post more photos and full story later.

Basic details – 26.2 miles completed in 7 hours, around £480 raised for Breast Cancer charities.

Blogged with Flock

Yes, the Moonwalk is finally here.

So, the training is done. The bra is decorated. Tonight at 23.40 BST I will be setting out to start the 26 miles around London.

At 4pm this afternoon I’m off to pick up my training partner, Karen, then we head over to my mum’s house to get her. My dad is then driving us to the bus station in Oxford to get the bus to Marble Arch. We should be there by about 7.45 and we then head into the “Playtex City” – a huge marquee set up in Hyde Park where we can get our pasta/rice meal and wait for the start.

I’m a little bit nervous now…even though I know we’ve done the training, and I’ve done the Moonwalk once before in 2004.

I’ve raised around £480 in sponsorship and the possibility of more if we finish in less than 7.5 hours! I’ll let you know how we get on – with photos of course – once I’ve recovered!

Update on Prize Draw

I’ve had over 240 entries so far but there is still 3 weeks to go and so still time to buy a ticket to win some wonderful prizes.

Talking of prizes, I have had some more donated by the lovely Sue at Get Knitted – she’s donated 3 skeins of Fleece Artist 100% merino – aren’t they gorgeous?

Go to www.wendyswoolies.com/raffle to check the full list of prizes and enter.

Blogged with Flock

well, the title should produce some interesting key word searches landing here!!!! As promised, photos of the fully decorated bra for the Moonwalk

It started out as a plain white Playtex Wonderbra, I dyed it with “Swirlin’s Strawberry Starfruit” flavour Kool Aid to send it this lovely pink colour. I like the fact that the stitching didn’t dye so it looks like it’s pink with white embroidery round the sides and back!.

The large stars were iron-on rhinestone motifs, the smaller stars were little iron-on shapes and the really tiny sequins came as a long string which I was just going to iron on to the straps. However, I forgot they are elastic and when I tried it on the strings of sequins on the straps all separated. I then realised they were really easy to pull apart and fis on individually all over the bra. The final touch was the two pink organza beaded corsages which I bought and sewed on.

I do still have a beaded fringe to sew around the bottom edge but this is pretty much it.

oh – and the “strawberry flavour”? As I dyed it with strawberry Kool Aid it smells of strawberries!!!!!

There’s still time to sponsor me before next Saturday/Sunday here or if you want to take part in my prize draw to win some yummy yarn then you have until 9th June and you can enter at www.wendyswoolies.com/raffle.

The final result of my Kool Aid yarn dyeing experiment turned out very well (in my humble opinion!) here it is with the clogs that inspired the colours.

I love the combination of colours, I’m struggling to get a photo that shows how vibrant they are as the weather here is wet and grey – if we ever get any sun again I’ll take some photos outside.

The yarn is sportweight Merino wool and I’m now looking for ideas of what to knit with it….any suggestions just send them in. There’s 100gms and I estimate about 310 yards possibly a little more. The colours are really summery and, take my word, they shine in the sun!!!

So – a contest. Just leave a comment suggesting what I can knit with this fruit-flavoured yarn and I’ll pick one suggestion on 31st May and send the winner a yarny surprise from my stash!

I am open to suggestions for anything – doesn’t have to be socks!

technorati tags:moonwalk, koolaid, dyeing, bra, moonwalk, contest, competition

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First the scarf, and BOY! is it a scarf…. this is the scarf I’ve been knitting for my ISE4 pal – actually I finished it a while back but have been waiting for a day to take some photos, here they are;

It’s a HUGE scarf – 25cm or 10″ wide and 188cm or 74″ long, it’s also very tactile being knit in Patons Spirit a mohair/acrylic blend. This is definitely a scarf for cold weather.

The details –

Yarn: Patons Spirit in shade 4506 “Blackcurrant”

Needles : 6.5mm Addi circular

Pattern : Old Shale stitch pattern over 41 stitches, I’ve put the pattern here

Here’s a close up of the pattern,

Still not 100% certain about sending this for my ISE4 scarf but I’m pretty sure it suits my pal.

PRIZES

Many of you will know that I have been trying to raise £1,000 for Breakthrough Breast Cancer. I have been selling hand-knitted items, holding car-boot sales and I am taking part in the Moonwalk in a few weeks time.

My training for the Moonwalk is going well, mum and I walked 20 miles last Sunday in 5 1/2 hours which is pretty much on target for our hoped for completion time for the full distance of 7 1/2 hours.

But – watch this space for the chance of winning some brilliant yarn prizes. I am organising a raffle or lottery to raise money for Breakthrough Breast Cancer, I already have some wonderful prizes donated and am waiting on some more….keep checking back for a chance to win!! It’s going to be well worth it I promise.

technorati tags:moonwalk, prizes, ISE4, walkthewalk, breakthrough

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One of the items in my ridiculously long UFO list is Jasmine, a cardigan in Rowan 4ply Cotton from Rowan 39.

I started this in the Spring of 2006 thinking it would be perfect for the summer to wear over little cotton dresses….unfortunately I didn’t read the pattern fully before I started and after I had knit all the panels I got to the bit of the pattern that said “with crochet hook pick up along left front, round back of neck, down right front and across back and crochet the lace border”

Hmmmm, slight problem, I can’t crochet. I have never been able to crochet. My grandma, who was a great crocheter, tried to teach me and failed. Jasmine was put to one side. I tried to follow the crochet instructions using some unwanted yarn and it looked awful. I really didn’t want to ruin this cardi so I put it to one side…I have friends who crochet so I thought, when I see one of them I’ll ask them to show me…..it got forgotten.

So now it has reappeared in my UFO list and I have to do something about it for THIS summer. So this weekend I taught myself to crochet. One of my crocheting friends gave me a book before Christmas “Learn to Crochet-A Beginners Guide” so armed with this and various internet sites I produced this –

My first ever crocheted granny square!!! It’s about 2″ square and knit with some left over Opal sock yarn.

I’m so proud of it! In the past when I’ve tried to crochet squares they’ve ended up like hats….no idea what I did different this time but it stayed flat – amazing

Spurred on by this success and having just signed up for the Crazy Afghan Squares swap on swapbot.com I looked for some more crochet square patterns and (not one to start with something easy) I have managed to produce this in just two days

This was crocheted with the same Opal sock yarn leftover, a UK no 11 crochet hook and the pattern was Granny Rose square motif at Patty’s Patterns

Once blocked it will be almost exactly 7″ square and so perfect for the swap….although I’m not sure I want to let my first ever successful crocheted item go…and being a harsh critic of myself I’m not sure it’s good enough to be sent to anyone as it was only knit with leftover yarn and the variegation makes it look odd. I may get some yarn in several colours and re crochet this motif in stripes however…

Anyway, it was only unpicked about 6 times before I got it right so that’s not bad is it – I learnt some lessons along the way…mainly that US and UK crochet terms are completely different – we say double you say triple, we say single you say double – I also kept forgetting to put in turning chains at the start of rounds…but I’m almost feeling confident enough to tackle Jasmine now.

Moonwalk training

The marathon training continued this weekend, today my mum and I went over to West Wycombe and walked from there along the valley to Saunderton and then back along the other side of the valley. It was a perfect winter day – amazing blue skies, sun shining and really cold. The walk was 7 miles and we finished in about 2 1/2 hours so not tremendously fast but we enjoyed it.

Finally, a gratuitous picture of my cat, Simpson, enjoying his Sunday

His favourite place – asleep on his cushion but close to the patio windows in case something occurs in the garden which needs his attention….

Thought I’d post some photos of my current WIP as the sun tried to come out this morning to enable me to take some daylight photos. It soon thought better of it and scurried back behind the clouds however so I’m sat here at 10 in the morning with the lights on!

First, a sock for my God-Daughter –

this is the Sockotta that I got from my Sockret Angel, I was going to knit something for myself with all my Sockret goodies but the colours just seemed perfect for socks for a 6 year old who is into Barbie and pink in a big way! She got Roller boots for Christmas (pink of course, with flashing lights in the wheels) and for her birthday this Sunday I wanted to knit her some nice cosy socks to wear with them.

I decided to knit stockings with a turn-over cuff, the cuff is adapted from the Rolling Thunder sock cuff at knitty.com – it has little pink beads. I then turned inside out and knit 2×2 rib for the inside of the cuff. The sock itself is in k3 p1 rib – like the Lichen rib sock from Knitting Vintage Socks that I used for my Socks that Rock.

I put in some decreases to shape the calf and have put in a Welsh Heel and am just working on the foot now. Not sure what sort of toe I will put in. She has quite narrow feet so possibly a pointed toe rather than a flat one.

Next, my January Challenge Sock from the Vintage Sock KAL

I’ve turned the heel on this as well and got quite a long way with the foot – about another 4″ before I can start the toe as I need to knit it a little longer than the pattern calls for. I knit another pair of these a while back to the pattern and they were slightly small for me (they were for someone else though so that was fine!)

Thirdly, although this is very nearly a FO – an afghan square

As you can see not quite a FO as I need to block and weave in the ends. This is a 7″x7″ afghan square for another swap I’ve signed up to, Crazy Afghan Squares. We each knit/crochet 4 Afghan squares and send them to 4 different recipients so everyone gets 4 different squares. This is the second time this has run but I was too busy with my charity knitting to take part in the last one. If it runs again I get another 8 so hopefully I’ll have enough for an Afghan throw eventually!

This was knit with Sugar ‘n’ Cream and is a honeycomb aran pattern – supposed to symbolise the bee and hardwork and it’s rewards.

So, on to my Marathon Training! I know this is a knitting blog but this training is going to be a big part of my life for the next 20 weeks so I want to record it somewhere. Yes, I’m doing a marathon – No, I am NOT running. One runner in the family (my mum) is quite enough. This is a powerwalking marathon called the Moonwalk run by a charity called Walk the Walk

Walk the Walk organise power-walk marathons to raise money and awareness for breast cancer research and care. The Moonwalk is so called because it starts at Midnight in Hyde Park, London and walks through the night. It is mainly women walking – several thousand – and they all walk in decorated bras! That’s right, thousands of women walking through the streets of London at night in their bras!

I did the Moonwalk in 2004 with my sister in law – here’s me at the start

and walking past the London Eye (about mile 19)

and here we are at the finish

We did the 26 miles in just over 8 hours which we were really pleased with, especially Jane who was having treatment for breast cancer just a few months before we walked.

This year I’m doing the walk with my mum, she’s a runner really but hasn’t managed to persuade me to run so I’ve got her power walking. We did a half-marathon last summer and managed to sign up for the Moonwalk which is on the 19th/20th May 2007.

Watch this space for details of my training programme – I really want to beat 8 hours this year.