giveaway #5

Hi, everyone! Hope all is well in your neck of the woods. I would like to start by of course, announcing last week's winner who is Heather from Knit One, Spin Two. Congratulations! You are going to love the Malabrigo Twist. Please drop me a line at yarnonthehouse@gmail.com with your mailing address. Also, we hope that you will be able to send over a picture of you and the yarn once it arrives so we may post it on the blog.




Last week I mentioned that I would have a guest designer for all of you to meet this week. Her name is Melynda (that's her in the cute red hat and cowl in the snow) and she runs a fabulous blog called French Press Knits. You can also check her out on Ravelry as FrenchPressKnits. If you have not had a chance to visit her blog or see her great patterns, you NEED to do that right now. I would say that Melynda is best known for her adorable self-titled French Press Felted Slippers. I think everyone and their mother are making these right now! Melynda so very graciously accepted my request to do a fun little interview with her by email. Without further ado, here are the 10 questions (part knitting, part fun) that I asked Melynda to answer for us:

1) Since you are French Press Knits, I think that we first and foremost need to know: How do you take your coffee?
Usually decaf- lots of cream, a little sugar. Oh, and of course it must pour out of a french press!

2) Why do you knit?
I love it. I could leave it at that, but I won't :). I have always enjoyed creating things, having a tangible product for my work. I love the satisfaction I get when I can stand back at the end of the day and say "I made that!". I enjoy any type of creating. In high school, I did a lot of sewing. Into college and beyond, I loved home improvement. In the past few years, the knitting bug has bit me quite hard, and every day I grow more and more passionate about knitting. I love the fact that there is always something more to learn- it's never too difficult, maybe just a little time consuming. I get no "I made that!" satisfaction from my job, knitting fills that void in my life.

3) Do you have any hidden talents or super powers? These could of course be hidden knitting talents or super powers.
I have never lost a limbo contest. I have a shirt that dons the nickname "Malimbo"

4) If your house was on fire and you could grab only 3 things before leaving, what would they be?
This is always such a difficult question. First would have to be the Bible I have had since Middle School. It is beat up and never leaves the house anymore, but in this case, it would.
I guess next would be my laptop. It's just practical (plus all my patterns and design ideas are stored on my computer... I should really get to backing that up!)
Last...let me look around real quick...ok, I'm back! Can I just pretend I have ultra long arms and can save my whole yarn stash? I feel like I may regret that answer, like people are going to remind me of something more important, but everyone needs one selfish grab!

5) Name one thing you miss about being a kid.
Just one, huh? Every summer my family would go camping in Ludington, Michigan right before school started. My cousins would all be there, along with aunts, uncles, extended cousins, and grandparents on both sides of my family. Most of the campers were people we knew and we could get anywhere we wanted to go on our bikes. Much time was spent exploring the sand dunes, hiking, and swimming in Lake Michigan. We had the freedom of adults with none of the responsibility- what more could you ask for?

6) What's your worst knitting disaster?
I've had many, and they were all from felting. When I was coming up with the French Press Felted Slipper pattern, I did a few prototypes before I even started getting the slippers to what I envisioned in my head. The worst part about felting mistakes: you can't reuse the yarn!

7) Do you believe in ghosts?
I believe there is evil...not sure about ghosts themselves

8) If you could live and knit anywhere in the world, where would you knit and live?
I'm living just where I want to live- surrounded by family. At this point a couple of my sisters have moved away, and if I could move them back here with me, I would choose to do that instead!

If I could just take a vacation to knit somewhere (which sounds pretty nice about now), it would be to Switzerland. My husband and I went a couple years ago on a trip through Europe and got to meet some of his relatives. They live in the Ticino region of Switzerland (right on the border of Italy) and it was charming. I did not knit last time I was there, it would be fun to go back to enjoy the scenery and the knitting!

9) What is your current knitting fantasy?
To have more time to knit and design... that's it!

10) And last but not least, if you were to be drinking a cocktail while reading my blog, what would it be?
Can it be a glass of red wine instead? Merlot, please!




Thank you Melynda for doing this interview for us. It has been fun chatting and getting to know you a little better. In honor of Melynda being our guest designer on the blog, I will be giving away THREE of her French Press Felted Slipper patterns (that's them above) to THREE lucky winners. Also, TWO of the lucky winners will receive 2 skeins each of Patons Classic Wool (see pic below). I picked out two really pretty colors for the TWO lucky winners: one is a beautiful amethyst purple color and the other is a deep olive green color.

This week my mother has donated the yarn for the blog giveaway. Thank you, mom! She has bribed her way out of being the giveaway model by donating this lovely yarn!! Since, she talked and bought her way out of modeling the yarn for you, I had to find another willing participant, and I found Lexi. Meet Lexi, my brother's girlfriend. Isn't she cute?! She was a sweetheart to step in last minute for my mom yesterday when I was photographing the yarn.




I would like you to do the following if you would like to be entered into this week's giveaway:

1) Have an address in the US to ship the yarn to. I wanted to add a little more to this line and say that if you have a friend or relative that has a US mailing address, that will work. I will send it to them and then they can forward it on to you. See house rules for further details.

2) Post a comment on this blog post by the end of Sunday, 3/7/2010, letting us know if you have knitted or are planning to knit these fabulous French Press Felted Slippers. Do you already own this pattern? Or, is this your first time seeing it? If it's your first time seeing this pattern, what do you think? Let's have fun talking about French Press Knits!

3) Please post only one comment to give everyone a fair chance.

Again, I'll randomly pick the winners on Sunday and post the results on Monday along with the new giveaway, so be sure to check back. Good luck everyone.

Sincerely,

Ve