Hawkeye

I've just finished my second Hawkeye and If I do say so myself, I'm really rather chuffed with how it turned out!

It looks like I've got my eyes shut in the picture above. Actually, the real reason is that I've discovered that my eyebags and wrinkles don't show so much if I look downwards in photos!

I really, really like this pattern as it's such an easy knit which produces a great finished object. The yarn I used for this project is Rooster Yarns Almerino Aran which is 50% Baby Alpaca and 50% Merino. It's the perfect yarn for this project as it knits up into a nice firm fabric but at the same time, feels lovely and soft and is very cosy. Although it could probably do with blocking, I'm not going to, as I don't want a repeat performance of what happened the first time I knit this pattern.

In other knitting news, I've not got anything big on the needles right now as I'm eagerley awaiting a parcel from Get Knitted. My Mother-in-Law has a big birthday coming up in March so I've decided to make her the Haven Scarf from Kim Hargreaves book, HEARTFELT the Darkhouse Collection. I've had my eye on this for quite a while so, needing the book to knit a gift for his Mum, was a good excuse to get hubby to pay for it (and the yarn..... with a couple of extra balls thrown in for myself!). Sneaky or what?!

Of course, the minute I decided to go ahead and order it, is the minute that Get Knitted phone to tell me they're out of stock so I've had to wait for about 10 days. Hopefully today will be the day the postman delivers... twitch , twitch!!

And the Winner of the Noni Patterns is.....

Drumroll please..............

Joy!

Congratulations Joy. I hope you have fun knitting up the patterns.

Thanks so much to everyone else who entered my little contest, and thanks for all your kind comments on my blog.

Joy: I'll send you a message via Ravelry to get your mailing details and will send your prize to you asap.

Goodbye, Sir Ed

"In some ways I believe I epitomise the average New Zealander. I have modest abilities, I combine these with a good deal of determination and I rather like to succeed."

Sir Edmund Hillary, 1919-2008

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!