Kiss My Knits!

Well, the Wearwithstyle Donors Choose yarn contest is over, which means you won’t have to hear me yammering about it anymore. It looks like we raised about $300. I picture a lot of happy kids with pencils, paper, scissors, and so forth. I picture a teacher excitedly opening UPS boxes, renewing her enthusiasm. I picture an entire Katrina classroom in Houston outfitted because of the generosity of knitters.

Believe it or not, every single person who donated won a prize, and some people won more than one. Right now, I’m debating whether to let people know in advance what they won, or just have a surprise package of yarny goodness show up on their doorstep. Opinions?

Whose Secret Pal rocks from across the globe? Why, mine does!

Yep, direct from South Australia, I got a package of goodies!

My God, it’s full of chocolate.

Tried to get out several times to see Serenity again today. No dice. Wedding tonight at 10pm ET, so I can’t go after the kid goes down.

Damn parental responsibilities!

I didn’t notice it last night, but I hear on many fan boards that The Hat did make an appearance in Serenity. It was on Jayne’s head, in the background of a shot featuring Kaylee and Simon in the foreground, when the ship is on the ground.

So now of course I have to go again.

ETA: Also, behold my geekiness! Many compliments were given. Also some strange looks. Go figure.

I used part of a gift certificate that someone had given me a long time ago to purchase a high-end pattern magazine for my Secret Pal, after she said she wanted it but couldn’t justify the cost for just one pattern. It arrived here yesterday.

Today on her blog she said she’d bought it.

D’oh!

Well, at least I didn’t already have this one for myself. Happy knitting day to me.

I loved it. It was much better than Cats. I’m going to see it again and again.

I set my glasses down on the bathroom counter for a moment just now, then picked them back up and put them on.

Moments, later, a HUGE HORRIBLE SIX-LEGGED MONSTER crossed my field of vision.

Damn bathroom ants.

It’s the last day for the Donors Choose yarn contest! Donate $10 to Donors Choose, e-mail me your receipt, and I will enter you in a drawing to win loot from my stash! Each $10 enters you again. The link above has details and pics of the yarn that’s up for grabs.

Donors Choose is currently part of an Amazon.com charity contest, where the charity which raises the most money by today earns up to a million bucks in matching funds. That’s a lot of pencils and notebooks. Also, through today, all donations to Donors Choose are going to fund classroom supplies for Katrina kids, who have been absorbed into school systems which already didn’t have enough for their own students. I shudder to imagine a child losing his or her home, starting over in a new school with new kids, and not having what they need to feel comfortable and succeed. This is a good way to get things directly to a child without worrying about exactly where your money is going.

Right now, everybody who’s donated has a chance to get something. I’ll root around and dig up a few more good quality things to offer if it looks like that will change.

Because I hate to beg and not offer anything in return, here’s a quick and easy scarf pattern for a rank beginner.

Iro sideways scarf

was thoughtful and kind enough to post a glowing review of the Jayne hat kit in the knitting community. And I can’t believe I didn’t think about the fact that every pattern I’ve ever seen has had a picture of the finished product on it. D’oh! Thanks for the good feedback, !

In other news, I agree with ‘s hearty “WTF???” to last night’s Lost.

With regards to Lost, I’m also thinking… I wonder if I could sell embroidered patches with the Dharma logo on them. I mean, c’mon. When Desmond asks you “are you him?” you want to be able to point to your shoulder and say, “Well, duh.”