My Excitement & Winnings

So, today I just randomly signed into Ravelry like I do everyday to check my group message boards and guess what I saw ...

My Alvin the Turkey was featured on the front page of Ravelry! It's part of the Thanksgiving edition of Community Eye Candy, and I was so excited I wanted to jump up and down! I've been getting lots of comments on it and that just makes you feel wonderful. I feel like an internet celebrity, lol. Pretty exciting.

And that's not all - the internet has been very good to me lately :) A few weeks ago, I entered a giveaway on the Stitch Diva Studios Facebook page and I won!

I won the new Knitting Outside The Swatch book by Kristin Omdahl. It's full of really neat knitting motifs and includes a few patterns you can use to put the motifs together. I'm excited to give some of them a try!

Then, a week later Stitch Diva Studios was having their Week of Giveaways. Of course, I entered them all. Each day. And I won again!

I won a gift pack that included the Tunisian Crochet Craftsy Class, Stitch Diva's Tunisian Crochet: Simple Twists on an Old Technique pattern collection (15 patterns in all!), and a Jenkins Handcrafted Maple Crochet Hook with Extension in Size  S (19mm). The gift pack was designed to be what you need to make the Stashbuster Blanket pattern (the one on the cover of the book), so I get to learn Tunisian crochet and use the hook to make it :) I've already watched several lessons in the class and I just love Jennifer Hansen's teaching style. If you haven't checked out Stitch Diva before, I highly recommend it. Her designs are very edgy and new, plus she loves to make new patterns for old techniques. I also have her Beyond Basic Broomstick Lace Class on Craftsy and I LOVE that class. It's so cool to keep these old techniques alive.

I also got my Craftsy yarn purchases a few days ago :) They are so soft! This is my first time buying lace yarn as well as my first time buying alpaca - I can totally see why people like it so much . It's silky and soft and I can't wait to make a shawl with them!

So, a super huge thanks to Stitch Diva Studios for all my new loot! And thanks to the editor at Ravelry - you totally made my day :)

Crochet Update: A Thanksgiving Turkey!

Yesterday, I really wasn't feeling well. I ended up just hanging out on the couch almost the whole day. While I was there, I wanted to at least get something done, so I decided to finally make myself a turkey :)

This is the Alvin the Turkey pattern from FreshStitches. It's rated as intermediate, which I think is a good assessment. His pieces are a bit tricky to position correctly, so he took about 5 hours in all to make.

The brown yarn is Red Heart Super Saver in Cafe Latte. The red and yellow yarns are Vanna's Choice in Cranberry and Mustard. I happened to have all these already in my stash :)

My favorite part about this pattern is the shape of the feet! The way you make them is very clever :) I took this to my parent's house for dinner and my nephew immediately hugged him and carried him around, so he is definitely a success with the kiddos :)

I'm so glad I have a cute little turkey to make my house feel a bit more festive for the next few weeks!