It's 2008, It's my one year Blogaversary and I have a Giveaway!

So! that's it then. Another Christmas has flown by. I hope you all had a flipping marvellous Holiday Season, wherever you were and whatever you were doing.

I was going to look back and review 2007 in this post, but quite frankly, I'm;

1. glad to see the back of it. There were plenty of good times, but it was also seriously stressful at times, and;
   
   
2. I really can't be arsed :)
   

So.... rather than dwell on the past, I'd rather look forward to 2008 and all the good stuff it has to bring. I'm hoping it's going to be a better year than the last one.

Anyhow, onto some knitting. My knitted Christmas gifts all seemed to go down really well, so I'm quite pleased about that. The Fetching Mitts I made for my Mother in Law and Sister in Law are already in full use, along with the Tête à Fetching hat and the Quickie Cowl.



The Buddy bag I made for my niece, Matilda seemed to be a big hit. It was mostly worn across her front like a baby sling to carry her new stuffed toy Polar bear around in and was also worn as a hat stretched over her head. The straps were stretched to their full capacity as she loaded it with heavy books and then swung it around in the air. It had some pretty heavy duty handling over the few short days I spent with my niece so I'm not sure what kind of shape it's going to be in now.

I've really not done much knitting at all over the past few weeks but I can show you my first FO for 2008. He's a Huggable Hedgehog from Fiber Trends. This little chap is going to live with my Godson Edward who will probably trash him in about a week. I've tried to make him as durable and child safe as is possible but Edward is pretty hard on his toys, so we shall see.

I've been wanting to make one of these for a while and I'm glad I finally got around to it. It's a great pattern and is well written, easy to follow and knits up in no time at all. The only downside is that there's a lot of short row shaping which requires a reasonable amount of concentration, so you need to be in a totally silent place when you reach this part of the pattern! I used Cascade 220 for the main part of his body and Stylecraft Eskimo for his spikes. Just for the record, I'd like to state that I absolutely HATE the Eskimo yarn!! It's the first time I've knit with this kind of novelty yarn, and if I didn't want to make more hedgehogs, it would quite possibly be the last time I knit with novelty yarn.

**TIME FOR A FREEBIE**

Finally , I've just realised that today is my first blogiversary. Yay me! So, I've decided that I shall have a wee giveaway in order to celebrate this grand occasion!

The winner will receive two Noni Patterns (yarn not included!), one is the Felted Carpet Bag and the second is Camellia Flowers which is the pattern to accompany the Felted Carpet Bag.



All you need to do is leave a comment here on the blog saying that you'd like to be entered into the draw and on Sunday, 13th January, I'll randomly choose the winner and announce it here on the blog. I'm happy to send the prize anywhere in the world so don't be shy, feel free to enter and Good Luck!