We have a winner! (well, more than one, actually!)

(for the Valentine’s contest)
Courtesy of the fine computers at random.org, and their random number generators, the plaid bag goes to… Catherine!
Bonus points because her comment was super-extra-hilarious:

My husband had a bad day last week and, for him, was unusually down. I tried a number of cheering up tactics, but still no smile. I pondered a bit more and came up with an idea I thought might do the trick. Quickly trolling through my vast arsenal of female emotions, I mustered up some pretty good and sincere looking facial muscles, turned to him and said, “I love you more than ALL of my wool.” Now since we are pretty much double-insulating our whole home with my wool stash, and that he is pretty aware of the fact that I know almost every ball and skein by name and location, this was a significant statement for me to make. He immediately laughed and said, “Really? All of it?” I caved a little. “Well, okay, not the ROWAN Felted Tweed. Everything else.” His grinning reply back was, “Really? That’s it? Just that one? Nothing else?” Me – “Oh yes, just that one.” A complete lie because I know with all of my soul about those few skeins of special hand-dyed that I keep under our bed and which I take out and stroke every few months, but what the heck, he was the one having a bad day.

The Shannon’s Choice Award of my own black Jordana Paige bag goes to Liz, who wrote, using Christopher Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” for inspiration:

The Passionate Knitter to Her Bag
COME live with me and be my bag;
With angora, alpaca, all that swag,
I will fill and you, my sweet love,
To create rich shawls, mittens, gloves.
You will sit beside my comfy chair,
With the rhythm of needles in the air,
And see the my creations come to shape;
Our life together a splendid escape.
There will I make thee a loving friend;
All cares will instantly suspend;
A partner, a sidekick, my grandest tool,
You’ll be treasured as my rarest jewel.
A sweater made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull,
Fair linèd slippers for the cold,
Gorgeous knitwear to behold.
Needles made from gleaming wood,
Used to make a charming hood:
Inside you, you’ll find, in this life of grace,
If you come live with me and be my case.
Afar we’ll voyage together, to arrive
In style at Vogue Knitting Live,
Or fiber festivals off the beaten path,
Like lovers on holiday, we’ll cut our swath.
The knitting angels shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
Grab these delights—and do not lag:
Come live with me and be my bag.

And the Shannon’s Choice runner-up — no bag, but you can have a selection of my patterns and books, if you like, is Sandra:

I am the grandmother of 5, almost 6. when my second granddaughter was trying to distinquish me from her other grandmother, she wanted to call us Grandma Dean and Grandma Phillips. I am divorce so I said, what if I get married? You will have to change my name. I am one of 6 children, the oldest, and my siblings called me SaSa. I said, call me Grandma SaSa. She said I am going to call you Sassy and it stuck. I am Grandma Sassy. Now mynieces children call me Sassy and even some other family and friends do too. It shows you can become what you are called, because, now I am sassy!!!!!

Isn’t that awesome? Congratulations, all. And now back to laying out and working on the final edits of several books, because the next few months are banner release months for Cooperative Press. So many books coming out soon! It’s dizzying, but in a good way.

Speaking of which:

I would love to hear your opinion on the new Cooperative Press website design. It’s slowly evolving, but I think it’s getting better bit by bit. We’ve also added some neat new functions like being able to pin books you like onto Pinterest. For example, you click here (well, it’s an image on the CP site) Pin It
and it lets you pin my book on Pinterest and tell your friends you like it, etc etc. Each book now has this on its page. Yesterday I had a local business journalist call asking about how we’re using Pinterest for our business and it was fun to show him that.
And on the yarn front, I got a skein of Bugga! in Violet Tailed Bluet the other day — it is just weep worthy, color-wise…recommend! recommend!

Tagged with: Knitting