A Contest

It's that time of year again......the leaves are starting to change......the air temp is a cool 95 degrees (I kid you not!) .......and Loves to Bike and Knit is rapidly approaching its second birthday. So in honor of the occasion I figured there would be no better way to celebrate than to give away some loot.

I had thought about just asking you to leave a short comment and then let the random number generator pull a winner, but while I still want you to leave a little comment, I'd also like to learn a bit more about my readers (and lurkers). In order to achieve that goal I'd like you to leave a comment with a link to your first completed knit project and tell me a little about its current status. If you don't have a link to a photo, just tell me what the project was, when it was completed, for whom it was made, and in what state it now exists~~if at all. Then I'll use the number generator to pick the two winners. That's it! Easey-peasey!

I'll get the ball rolling with my first completed project. Must have been back in the summer/fall of '98. I, for whatever reason, don't even remember now, decided I wanted to learn to knit. I searched through the library and found EZ's Knitting Workshop and the rest is history. My first project was a sweater for Mr Fix-it using EZ's percentage recipe from KW. The photo is a bit frightening due to an ice storm that left us without power for a week. This was taken on Christmas Day~~two days into the ordeal~~no heat, no hot water, no Christmas dinner. The cold apparently even did in the film in my camera. The percentage recipe worked, but I didn't do a gauge swatch~~signs of things to come. The yarn was a lovely New Zealand wool that I paid an arm and a leg for at my former lys (long since closed). Because I didn't do a swatch my gauge was way off (hadn't yet learned that I am an extremely loose knitter, and that I can't pay any attention to the needle suggested on the ball band of a skein of yarn) the sweater grew and grew every time he wore it (all two times). After that it resided on the shelf in his closet~~I didn't even pull it out to wear~~that's how awful it was. Finally, after I picked knitting up again in '05, I frogged the whole sweater (ah yes, the advantage of knitting in the round) and was able to salvage almost all of the yarn. So this project's current state is all this great yarn~~rolled into lovely cakes. Some was used for a scarf for my brother back in '05, but I may have enough to make a raglan for The Terror.

There you have it. If I have the nerve to put my horrendous first project out there for all to see, so can you. C'mon, fess up! There are prizes.

Yep, knew that would get your attention! First up, a copy of Harlot's Knitting Rules; and second, a skein of Vesper Aquamelon because I want to share my love for this yarn with one of you guys! Hurry and get your comments in. Entries will be accepted until 11:59 pm et on October 14, 2007 (the day of my second blogiversary.)

And thanks for two great years!