Chickenlips Knitting

I know I displayed a couple pics of this jacket in yesterday's post, but there were a couple more things I wanted to say about it, or related to it. First of all, D'OH! I bought the wrong kind of zipper. Here's me at JoAnn a few days ago: "Separating zipper? Well, don't they all separate?" No, I'm not a newbie, I'm a complete ijit! So I've gotta go back and get the right kind of zipper today. Live and learn.

The other thing is, I did quite a bit of work on the jacket while a friend of my daughter's was hanging out at our house last week. She has quite a few boys as friends--they share the same interests: Adult Swim cartoons, "hair metal" bands such as KISS, Dungeons & Dragons, and video games. They're well-behaved and well-mannered--these kids can hang out at our house when I'm not home and I don't have to worry, I know 50 kids aren't going to show up with a keg and burn the place down. One of these boys in particular is funny and good natured, if a little on the clueless side, and doesn't seem to mind being the butt of the occasional joke as long as he's part of the crowd. Part of the reason he's special to me is that his family was homeless for a time, and lived in their car. His parents now have jobs, and are able to keep him and his siblings together in an apartment. He belongs to a local Christian center, enjoys school and his friends, and is a "normal" kid in every sense. But that time in his life is naturally something he hates to talk about, and I only know about it because my daughter told me. I don't know if this will make sense, but that somehow made homelessness real to me. Another of these kids was sent to live with his grandma for a while, and his sister was sent to another relative, to avoid the same type of situation because of unemployment for both parents.

Which brings me to this: I can put that jacket in the homeless shelter collection bin at the local Unitarian church, in fact I could fill the bin with handknit jackets, hats and scarves, but to me it doesn't feel like enough. My friend Christine, aka Flutter, recently held an event on her blog for Foodiepalooza in which she had her readers vote for a recipe she would cook, and every dollar donated to America's Second Harvest or food bank of one's choice counted as one vote. Christine raised almost $400. I think this was truly inspired blogging, and I'm inspired to do something similar for the homeless. I see the effects of it in our community, in my child's social life and therefore in my own home, which I cherish and value more each day, and no longer take it for granted. If anyone reading is similarly inspired, your suggestions are most welcome. I hope that together we'll be able to brainstorm something. Thanks!

Hannibal the kitten discovers that cinnamon grahams freakin' ROCK.

OK, enough of my Sunday morning musings and the Kitten Cam. Now let's get to what you've all been waiting for, the Yarn Giveaway drawing!

Hey, we need a drum roll. Cue Neil.

So that you know everything's on the up-and-up, I've kept the results in a secret vault at my accounting firm, Dewey, Cheatem & Howe. Kidding! I compiled this list from everyone's comments, and assigned each one a number corresponding to the order in which you all posted:

1. Rilana
2. sophanne
3. Kelly
4. flutter
5. Mrs. H
6. kay
7. uberstrickenfrau
8. Yarnhog
9. Quail Hill Knits
10. WilBlg4Yrn
11. HDW
12. Chrispy
13. Knitted.distraction
14. Michelle
15. Tammy
16. KnittyChicka
17. peggy
18. Patty
19. Rebecca
20. Megan
21. Kay
22. Steffaroni
23. Annette
24. Jean
25. Aimee
26. Vicki Jean
27. AfternoonMoon
28. Marlene McDonald
29. Fancy Pants
30. Bobbie
31. Michael
32. Elizabeth
33. Jessica M.
34. aimee noel
35. Femmy
36. Kabira
37. alittleweirdo
38. Tina

I then plugged in 1 as the lower limit, and 38 as the upper limit, into the Custom Random Number Generator.

And the number it picked: 2.

Which means the yarn goes to: "sophanne", aka Becky of becky knits too.

Congratulations, Becky! I'm not sure if I have your email, so let me give you mine: sharonfs AT comcast DOT net. Shoot me an email with your mailing addy, and I'll get that bag of Kona Bay Cotton, plus a little goodie (knitting related) of my choosing, out to you PDQ.

Thank you all for playing! Do check back, because this was so much fun that I'll be having another yarn drawing again in the fall, probably during the first half of October, so that there will be time to knit holiday gifts.