First fo 2008

36 baby socks for A4A.
And the prize yarn is some nice alpaca from my stash.
Nothing like waiting until the last minute to finish January socks for KAL's.

We have a winner!

Three people guessed the correct amount of socks. I finished 36 pair (and much to my hubby's delight didn't put a single pair on my fingers and say, Look they are even cute walking). By random drawing the winner is Sophanne.

The grandkids are coming any minute so I'll snap a pic of the socks and the prize yarn on Monday. Thanks everyone for playing along.

Time for a contest

So what happens when you start knitting just one thing on 1/1/08? Say of instance an obsessive sock knitter decided to knit baby socks. And this obsessive sock knitter knit nothing but baby socks for 20 days straight? If she worked 60 hours a week and squeezed in knitting around that schedule how many pair of baby socks do you think she's be able to finish to mail off to Afghans for Afghans? Take a guess. Winner will be drawn on Friday 1/25/08 at 12 est.

D2's new tattoos

I'll start off by saying that I don't have any tattoos. I don't find them offensive but it's been my choice not to have any tattoos. I think some tattoos are beautiful, well thought out symbols of a part of life, hobby, or a special person. Others are more than a little stupid.

My friend's son had a tattoo put around his arm. "It's a tribal band" he explained. "What's your tribe?" I asked. Eyes rolled and no explanation followed. I would have expected to hear, "I love how it looks" but no explanation said that his friends were getting them and being one of the cool kids he went along with the group.

D2 is into tattoos. She has one on her left leg of a baby smurf stacking blocks. On the blocks are her name and date of birth. I don't care for it but it's got meaning to her. On her right back shoulder are a couple of cherries. Lower back is Senior Frog (a bar logo) and on her front right hip is the first initial of her name. I don't really care for any of them but it's her body and when she gets married it'll be up to her to try to cover up a big red frog on her lower back.

That being said .....

these would probably make more sense if they were on a 3 yr old instead of a 23 yr old. I don't get it.

Secret knitting has been happening. Contest next week about it.

End of the year stuff

Don't ya love blog friends? My blog friend Gypsy had a contest about your best holiday. I submitted my story about the year we had 2 little kittens who tore our christmas tree apart every night and my husband's quest to keep them away. In the end the kittens won. Random selection sent me this ..... You can see more of Gypsy's yarn in her esty shop. Lovely stuff. Gypsy's daughter got married on the 22nd so there should be some great wedding pics on her blog soon. Happy bride and the mother of the bride did nothing to harm the groom's family so I'd say that's successful.

I was playing with some new toys and made some soap for the grandkids. Crappy first attempt because I didn't read any of the directions. I was too excited to read. Next batch will be much better .... don't think it could be much worse. lol

So we finished our Christmas ham and decided to put the little left and the bone on the bird feeder for the crows. I didn't notice a single crow today but there was this Joey cat bird hanging around.
Working away on D3's shawl. Really nice.
Lovely yarn.
I think we'll be starting off 2008 with a contest. Details tomorrow. Have a safe and happy new year's celebration.

The best pal continues and $8.98

Aren't these just so cute? Excuse the awful picture but it was overcast and horrible this morning. Anita put them in the spider web kit in my dishcloth exchange package. I put them back on the pins since I started using them the minute I found them. What a super talented gal you are, Anita! Check out her esty shop for these (with a much better picture) and many more wonderful things.
Plugging along I finished 1 of my Opal green prisma socks (casted on the second one already) and one of my leftover socks. All I can say about the leftover sock is that it doesn't suck as bad as I thought it would. This picture was taken this morning and I'm already almost done with the second leftover sock. It doesn't match but I didn't expect it to.
I got this wonderful package from Jane for her show your socks contest. The yarn has been sitting on my couch trying to let me know it if wants to be socks or mitts.
I was assigned the task of knitting hats for W and N to go with their Halloween costumes. This year they are going to be turtles. W will be a blue turtle and N will be a green turtle. So I picked up some yarn over the weekend to make them hats for their turtle heads.

And since I saw picking thru the clearance stuff I decided to get these. The yarn is called jewlery box? and it was $1 per 2 oz skein. I think I'll make a couple scarves and donate them to the human services department. Every year for the holidays they have families come in and pick out gifts so I think some child might pick out a nice scarf for mom. So add another $8.98 to my yarn total for the year.

I signed up for the MS3 but never got around to knitting the shawl. It was a lovely pattern so I just bought it instead and will make it sometime in the future. 2 versions for the shawl so it's money well spent.

Showing my socks

This post is for Jane's 3rd annual show your socks contest. This sorry pair of socks is my very first pair of socks. I had never used thin yarn, never knit on bamboo double points, and never before knit a sock. After finishing these I was hooked and knew I could only get better.

This is my latest finished pair. Knitting socks is my favorite knitting. The only thing better than knitting them is wearing them.

The answers and our winner!

Ok first the answers to what won at the fair. The little green sweater set and the maroon feather and fans stole both won 1st. The green shawl won 2nd. And the felted bag took 3rd.

Personally I was shocked that the jumper didn't win because it had knitting, crocheting and embrodery all in one item. Quite a range of skills needed. And I didn't think the felted bag should have gotten anything because really how hard is it to knit in the round, throw it in hot water and dry it over a box.

Congrats to luckey #22 comment which belongs to Babs.

Things that make you wonder

Ok so I bought a 3 pack of Puffs tissues (fall allergy season in a household that has 4 people with allergies) and as I was taking them out of the packaging I couldn't help but notice that they kindly put directions on how to use the tissues on the bottom of the boxes ..... in 3 languages.

Can you just picture some 80 yr old dude saying, "ooooohhhh look here Martha, you hold the tissue under your nose and blow." "Well thunderation, Hal, what new fangled thing will they think of next!"

If you see me on the street reading directions on how to use a tissue please feel free to run me over.

Did you get a chance to ventured a guess in my contest? If you didn't please meander over. You don't have to guess right since it's an opinion vs reality.

Contest time!

Take a look at these ....

and these too. I entered all this in a local grange fair over the weekend and took home 2 blue ribbons, 1 red and 1 white.

Here's the contest: Try to guess which 2 things won first place in their division. The prize will be a couple balls of some sock yarn (colorways to be determined after some stash diving). Winner will be determined on September 24th.

And the winner is .....

Anne! Way to go Anne! Shoot me an email with your address and your prize will be in the mail this week.

Thanks to everyone who played.

At July 10, 2007, Anne said...
Congratulations :) I'd have to say the best compliment I ever got was from my dad on my prom night - he told me I looked beautiful, and it was special to me because it was one of the few times I didn't get the 'pretty is as pretty does' speech he was famous for haha

Contest ends Friday!

Just a reminder to post your best compliment before Friday at noon. There are some great compliments if you have a minute to read thru them all. I'm still knitting along without finishing anything. It's been hazy, hot and humid in CT so that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Of course it wasn't too hot to order some Noro kureyon in color #40 for a booga bag for myself. I can't wait to start that. Maybe I'll bait myself with having to finish 1 or 5 projects before I'm allowed to cast on.

One year of blogging

Yup tomorrow is a full year of blogging for me. It's been a great way of keeping me on task with my knitting so that I actually finish stuff. Along the way I've met some wonderful fellow craft people with amazing skills.



So in honor of this feat in my blogging career I feel a contest is needed. How about a couple skeins of Opal sock yarn? Sock yarn? I know what a shock! Drawing will be Friday July 13th at 12 noon est.

Here the contest question: What's the best compliment you've ever received?

My best compliment was from my grandson W. I had received some cookies and was giving him one when he came out with: You know Gram, you are a very good sharer.

No more single socks around here

In going thru my stash looking for something I found some knitpicks yarn and decided to whip up a pair of cic socks. Being the year of "greedy" knitting aka knitting for me or knitting projects that are of interest to me, I haven't been doing a lot of charity knitting. Oh well, maybe later this year.
Socks for D1 in Lana Grassa Meilenweit Multieffekt #3122. She liked the ones I made for myself.
These are for me. Fortissima 9503. Very fuzzy, grabby yarn that didn't come out of the ball well and knotted a lot. Soft yarn and wears well so I'd use it again.
Finishing this stuff left me with just a clementine shawlette in progress so onto the needles jumped this yummy yarn; won in a contest at Redheaded Ramblings. It's an alpaca/merino wool blend. Very soft. Seems like once I started knitting with alpaca I just can't stop. The pattern shows sequeins laced into the scarf. I don't think I'll be adding the sequeins. And I'll leave you with a picture of D2 out for a paddle in her kayak around the pond yesterday. It was a really nice, bright, sunny day perfect for being outside. I of course was inside working.

We have a winner

TREK

Thanks for all the great rants. Doesn't it feel good to get stuff off your chest?

Rant and win contest yarn

Ok, went thru my sock yarn stash and decided on some Trekking XXL 100 and cervinia for a prize. Give me a good rant.
And when a cat bites your toe while you are trying to take a picture of your current sock in progress this is what you get.

Reminder to Rant to win

Did you post your rant to win? We've got some good ones out there.

Well, I forgot to update my rant. I emailed Walmart.com on Saturday May 12th to let them know what was going on with the store. Late Monday I got an email back from Walmart apologizing for the situation and asking me to fax over my receipts. I emailed back stating that I didn't have any receipts.

Tuesday I decided to call customer service and see where we were in the process. I spoke with a very nice woman who again apologized, put me on hold to read the notes on my account, came back and asked me if I faxed my receipts yet, put me on hold again, came back and apologized again asking me what exactly had happened at the store, put me on hold again while she called the store, came back apologized and said I would be hearing from the accounting department by the end of the day.

Wednesday I received an email from the accounting department stating that yes I was under refunded $9.54 and it would be credited back to my card shortly. My idea of shortly would have been that day. Their idea of shortly was Friday.

Friday I get a call from the store manager at Waterbury Walmart asking me why I didn't just come back to the store to get the rest of my refund. I couldn't believe this guy had the balls to call and question anything I did. After all, I didn't create any of this situation; his staff did. And that's exactly what I told him.

So that's the end of my rant. I'm not anti Walmart, just anti bad service. I told my mom you know it's not the money it's the principle of the thing. So you know what that means? It cost me more in my time than it was worth. It took me 50 minutes to get the initial $159.00 back. That was cost effective. It took me 30 minutes to get $9.54 returned. Not cost effective but I just couldn't let it go.

What's your rant?

Rant to Win Contest

Got a good rant? Please share it with me. You can name names, places, dates, anything you want. Just get it off your chest. Prizes will be posted after I look thru my stash but it'll probably be sock yarn. Random drawing on 5/31/07.

I'll start it off with my current crappy situation:

I'm in the middle of a stupid customer service nightmare with friggin Walmart that just can't be believed. I ordered a swingset for my grandkids thru their website and used the site to store option figuring that we'd pick it up at the store, drive it to their house, and set it up. No problem. Delivery to the store in 7-10 days. You'll get an email from the store and then you'll have 21 days to pick it up. $159.00 plus $9.54 tax. Great!

After 14 days I emailed the website to ask status. I got a call from the store saying, "Yes your swingset came in a week ago (they never called or emailed) but it was damaged in shipping." I asked if they had ordered a replacement. "No we can't do that." I asked them to cancel the order and refund my credit card. "No we can't do that. You have to come to the store and decline accepting the damaged set. Once you do that then you can go back on the website and reorder it." I said I didn't want it just refund my credit card. "Nope, you have to come in."

So I stopped in at Walmart in Waterbury, CT to decline to accept my set and get a refund. The customer service desk knows nothing. They call a manager. They call a manager again. They call a manager for the 3rd time. After 15 minutes the manager calls back saying tell her to come back tomorrow. Nope, I'm not leaving. I want my money. I tell her to call him again and tell him I want my money now.

Another 15 minutes and up walks an assistant manager, Allan, who says that I should come back tomorrow. No, I want my money. We go back to the site to store section and he takes my id, looks thru the computer system, sees my order, goes in the back and sees the damaged box, comes back and spends the next 10 minutes trying to get me a credit. Nope the computer won't let him do the refund. Could I come back Monday? No.

"Ok we'll have to get you a refund in cash from the store safe." Another 10 minutes of waiting. He hands me $159.00 has me sign a log. I ask for a receipt. "Nope there isn't one. The logbook is the receipt." Can I get a copy of the logbook? "No." Well you are under paying me because I was charges tax. "If you are owed more money just come back and we'll take care of it."

I get home check my credit card and sure enough I'm short $9.54. I email help@walmart com and outline the situation. I get an email back today asking me to fax my receipt for the $159.00. I emailed back stating that there isn't a receipt and giving them the outline of this refund. As of right now I'm still out $9.54 and will never deal with walmart.com ever again.

So that's my current rant. What's yours?