Now Norma Knits

Trick or Treat!!!

Treat, of course. 

It's a surprise Halloween drawing in the Red Scarf Fundraising Drive, and the winner is..... drum roll, please....

MELANIE P. 

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Melanie is the winner of the following:

a JessaLu bag

 

a skein of Twinkletoes sock yarn just donated yesterday by Ann K.  This is very cool yarn with twinkly contrast yarn for heels and toes.  

(Thank you, Ann!)

A $10 gift certificate to Knitspot

and

A copy of Vogue Knitting Holidays donated by Carol.

Congratulations, Melanie, and thank you for your generous donation -- and thank you again to all the prize donors.  

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, everyone!

INSTANT SOCK YARN STASH BUILDER Prize Package

BUILD UP AN INSTANT BEAUTIFUL AND VARIED

 SOCK YARN STASH!

Jan H. has sent two beautiful lots of sock yarn:

 

Shibui Sock in this gorgeous blue.

 

And Lorna's Laces in the Grumperina colorway.

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Ann K. has donated Sanguine Gryphon Eidos in the colorway Emoige 

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Rabbitch has donated a 460+-yard skein of her fabulous sock yarn in her new colorway Aurora

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Kristin S. has donated these two skeins of Socks That Rock and two skeins of Lorna's Laces:

and 

Kate L., Annobananos & ShelbyKnits have teamed up to donate a skein of Sundara Santa Fe Sock Yarn (This wonderful yarn is available only by subscription.  They have a combined subscription, and have very generously donated their next shipment to our cause!!)

THIS ENTIRE PACKAGE OF 11 SOCK YARNS WILL GO TO ONE LUCKY WINNER!

and don't forget to notify us of your donation amount at 
redscarffund@gmail.com

You get one chance at winning for each $5 donation, and for every donation over $5 you are entitled to a discount in JessaLu's Artfire shop.

A Win-Win-Win Gift from JessaLu

I bet you, like I, have always been a sucker for JessaLu's cute, very well made, and functional bags. Maybe you already have one or two. But there's always room for another!  They are so perfect for carrying around a small project - socks or mitts or a neckwarmer - or a spindle and fluff - or even as a makeup or art supplies bag - keeping things neat, tidy and organized, in a very stylish way. 

 

JessaLu's Halloween-themed line

And here is a fabulously creative incentive idea straight from her to you:

She has donated a coupon code for 10% off a purchase in her ArtFire shop to be sent to each person who donates more than $5 to the Red Scarf Fund from today forward (so now you get an extra thank you if you donate again). 

You can apply the coupon code to your purchase in her ArtFire shop. This code is in effect for the next year; however, each person can only use it once.

To claim your coupon code, let us know at redscarffund@gmail.com the amount of your donation to the Red Scarf Fund greater than $5, and we will send you the code.  

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!

JessaLu has also donated three prizes to the prize basket for the main Red Scarf Fund drawing.  (I just realized we have not set a final date for the drawing. I hereby decree that the final date is December 15, 2009, but we will be doing surprise drawings along the way -- you never know when that cashmere or that other coveted item might be drawn -- so get your donations in early and often!)

Added to the main prize basket are three gift certificates for JessaLu's $25 bags.  So that's three chances (times however many multiples of 5 your donation is) to win a JessaLu bag, AND for your donation of greater than $5, a coupon code for 10% off a purchase in her shop.  

Please let us know the amounts of your donations -- you get one chance at the big prize drawing for each $5 donation.

Winner of the Red Needles

We had 36 reported donations to the Red Scarf Fund since I started the first phase of the fund drive, the raffle of the Signature Arts needles, last Thursday. For this part of the drive, the amount of your donation didn't matter -- just that you notified me you donated.  Each donor was assigned a number -- it was simply chronological based on the time of email you sent notifying me of your donation.  I plugged it into the Random Integer Generator, and this is the result:

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

19

Timestamp: 2009-10-03 07:12:08 UTC

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And donor number 19 is....... drum roll, please.........

MARIANNE!

Congratulations!

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I'm pleased to report that we raised over $1,000 in this phase of the fund drive. Great work everyone; thank you for playing; and congratulations Marianne.  

Now I'm off to the Vermont Sheep & Wool Festival for the day.  Joansie is driving, so I can knit on my blood orange scarf.  Should we have any fun at ALL (or even if we DON'T, hahahahahahahahahahaha) I'll be sure to let you know all about it.  Hoping I don't have camnesia.....

Deadline for the Red Needles Raffle is Midnight Eastern Tonight, and Heads Up! More Details About Future Drawings

Here's your last chance to win the red Signature Arts Needles. Go ahead and click and donate -- you know you wanna!  The raffle closes at midnight Eastern Time tonight, and the drawing will occur tomorrow.  As of this writing, we have 26 contestants, with a total of $930 raised since last Thursday, when I first started this raffle for the needles.  

After the needles have been drawn and the winner chosen, we will move on to Phase II of Red Scarf Fund Drive 2009, and I am putting out the call for more prize offerings.  We've got some good ones already, and we'd like more if you can offer them.  

Please send your prize offerings to the following email address:

redscarffund@gmail.com

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Here is an example of one of the early prize offerings just to whet your appetite:

Generously donated by our fabulous Joan, this box of fingering weight cashmere yarn, about 2,000 yards total, retails for approximately $250. Can you just IMAGINE the shawl (probably more than one!) or sweater, and a pair of cashmere socks for a very special someone -- or mitten liners or -- you name it -- that you could make with this?!

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Cookie will be my spreadsheet master this year.  She has quite a big pair of shoes to fill following Paula, who did such a tremendous job last year, but I am sure she is up to the challenge.  (Sweating under the pressure yet, Cookie? Hee.)

So here's what I would like you to do if you are going to donate a prize to offer in the next and final phase of our Red Scarf Fund drive for this year:

1.  Send a photo of your item(s) -- or if it's a gift certificate, just indicate that in an email addressed to REDSCARFFUND@GMAIL.COM, as indicated above.  Cookie or I will send you an acknowledgement email.  If you do not receive that email in a reasonable period of time (within a day) after you sent your email, please contact me at norma.knits@gmail.com. It could be that the email got lost or put in the spam box, so we will want to be sure to follow up on that.

2.  Please do not donate an item if you do not want to donate it in the true sense of the word. The way a raffle works is that yes, it is possible that one person might only donate $5 and win the cashmere, whereas someone else might donate $200 and get a $10 gift certificate, or someone could win more than once while another person doesn't win anything at all.  That is the thing about chance. It is random and the winner is indeed chosen by a computerized random number generator based on the number of entries.  

On that topic, when it comes time to donate money to the fund, please consider that you might not win anything. This is about the college kids and raising money for the fund that will help them, not about anything else. This little raffle on the side is simply that -- a little raffle on the side, to make things a little bit more fun and to generate enthusiasm for the project. I hope you will donate with no strings attached and no expectations of big thank yous, because they might not come, either from the people who have won your items in the raffle, or from the students. I hope that the act of generosity itself will be its own reward. Cookie and I will make every endeavor to thank you personally, but if we forget or your email gets lost, I hope you will realize that our thanks are implicit and genuine.

I hate to have to mention these things, but as you can probably guess, I'm doing it because it has been an issue in the past.  More about the rules of donating and entering later; this post is intended to be about making donations of prizes so that we can have a good raffle.  

3.  You will be responsible for mailing the item as soon as possible after being notified of the winner.  We will collect and relay the person's snail mail address for mailing.  I ask that you not send items to me, since I cannot handle all the postage (not to mention the time required) to send the many items out.

4.  Please be encouraged to donate small items or large.  For small items, we will do as Paula did last year, and I think it worked very well.  We will group related items together into "Sock Knitter's Package," "Lace Knitter's Package," "Spinner's Surprise," "Pink-Lover's Package," "Beginning Knitter's Gift Pack," or whatever.  We'll make it up as we go along.   

5.  Thank you!  

Now here's another important message:  I dropped the ball on a few people who offered prizes, because in the early stages I was not sure how much of a fund-raising effort we would run this year, and I cannot be sure I will find all your emails.  So for those of you who did that, would you mind duplicating your offer, sent to that redscarffund email address this time, so we can make double- and triple sure that we've logged it, etc.? Thanks again!  

In the past, we have raised approximately $20,000 during each of our fundraising efforts.  

Need More Incentive?

OK.  Go read this.   

I hope you're knitting on your scarves (deadline is December 15th), and I hope you will consider donating to the Red Scarf Fund for foster youth.

Email me if you want to be entered in the drawing for the red needles. There are more prizes to be announced as soon as this drawing is over (did someone whisper "cashmere"?), and your donations made now will count toward those prizes as well. 

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Because I know some people don't read the comments, I wanted to highlight this one by printing it here. Thank you, Kate, for this info:

Sniff... I wanted to point out to readers who are federal employees OFA has a Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) number:  11105. It's almost time for the CFC drive. I know where my money will go this year!

Commenter name: Kate

Terrier Tuesday -- WELCOME OLIVE!!!

OMG, OMG, OMG, OMG, Dear Readers. Have you heard?!  There's another (part) terrier in the bloggerhood!!!!  

She has such cute ears and such a cute nose, I think I'm in love.  I hope Olive will guest blog on a few Terrier Tuesdays. Will ya, will ya, will ya, Olive?  OMG!  You're my favorite THING!  When I'm not body-slamming the kitchen cupboard that holds the TREATS, I love you, and only you, unconditionally. I'll give you a good share of the treats, if you can help me get into this cupboard!  I will!  

Don't tell Chloe, the Yorkshire girl at my babysitter's house, I said I love you, though.  She might not like it much.

Love,

Mr. Jefferies

P.S.  Alpha Alpha wants me to tell you she finds it to be a stroke of good luck that after yesterday's post about judges and lawyers, she is brushing up on the Man of Law's Tale for tonight's class on the Canterbury Tales. 

P.P.S.  She also wants me to tell you that saying "Welcome, Olive," is a good excuse to make a donation to the Red Scarf Fund.  Just sayin'.  The raffle for the needles is still going on, and you have until midnight this Friday night to get your entries in.  All the details are in this post.  Be sure to email her at norma.knits@gmail.com to tell her you've donated (and prove it somehow, too, please).  kthanks! 

Proof That Mr. Jefferies Is Back To His Bossy Self A-OK

 

When we had that cold snap, I realized he needed more warm clothes (No, stop that.  I'm not knitting him a sweater.  Yet.  Heh.)

I ordered him an adorable plaid fleece jacket from Kooldawgtees, as well as some new boots which unfortunately I will have to exchange. Why didn't I realize his feet are "tiny" size instead of "XS"? Anyhoo, they put this green flip-flop shoe squeaky toy in, which, as you can see, was a big hit.

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Don't forget to donate to the OFA and email me at norma[dot]knits[at]gmail[dot]com in order to be placed in the drawing for the lovely Signature Needles.  More about it in yesterday's post.

Or in the alternative, simply donate because Mr. Jefferies is cute.

One (Perfect) Salad At A Time -- And A Red Scarf Fund Raffle

And there I was, thinking that my fall crops were going to amount to nothing. Oh ye (I) of little faith.  

I went out to the garden yesterday, and granted, we have been having unseasonably delicious weather.  But out of nowhere, these little greens had appeared -- enough for a very large and spectacular luncheon salad.  I've got everything in this bowl from lettuce (only one plant made it out of an entire packet of seeds, what with marauding critters and lack of watering and such), to lots of baby spinach, kale, beet greens, (I don't know what the curly thing is that is from the French Market mix -- the one that tastes of anise, but it's in there), parsley, and broccoli (the little broccoli florets were terribly camera-shy for some reason).  I put an ounce of local goat cheese on it, and a half a can of tuna (not local, heh), and dressed it with a vinaigrette I made of my own garlic, Vermont apple cider vinegar, Vermont sunflower oil, and maple syrup.  I should have remembered the scrumptious red onions I have, but I was so anxious to eat this that I forgot them until it was already gone, and I had one of those V-8 moments, slapped my forehead, and say, "Wow. I could have had ...."  

While I was outside, I planted the packet of microgreen seeds that I mentioned yesterday.  Hopefully we won't go into the deep-freeze too soon for them to sprout and grow enough to have on a sandwich or salad or something in the 25 days it promises on the packet.  

I like to think I'm saving the world -- or at least myself -- one perfect salad at a time.  

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And so how would you like the chance to win these gorgeous red size US 7 needles from Signature Needle Arts?

These were generously donated by reader and Red Scarf Project supporter extraordinaire Jean E.  She ordered them from SignatureNeedleArts and had them mailed to me.  These are referred to by many as the Ferrari of knitting needles.  They come packaged in a beautiful gift-worthy clear plastic tube, wrapped in the blue tissue. Truly a beautiful presentation, perfect for gift-giving or for keeping for yourself.  They are STUNNINGLY crafted and knit like a dream.  They sell for $32 a pair, and they could be yours, all yours!

To kick off the fundraising for the Red Scarf Fund this year, I'm going to try something a little different.  On the idea that every little bit helps, and lots of small donations add up to make a big difference, I'm going to start small and raffle these off. 

HERE ARE THE RULES:  

Donate at least $5 (hopefully more if you can spare it) to 

the Red Scarf Fund For Foster Youth 

and let me know via email at 

norma[dot]knits[at]gmail[dot]com 

You don't even have to tell me the amount, but do please give me real proof that you have donated to the Red Scarf Fund at the 

Orphan Foundation of America.  

DEADLINE:

 midnight Eastern Time, FRIDAY, October 2nd, 2009

 I will then put your name in the random number generator for a shot at these wonderful needles. 

The easiest way to donate is through Paypal at the link above, but you can send them a check if you wish. Just don't forget you will have to prove to my satisfaction that you sent it.  I assume you will be honest and fair with me, and you will have to trust that I will be honest and fair with you. The address for sending a check is:

Orphan Foundation of America

21351 Gentry Drive, Suite 130

Sterling, VA 20166

Make checks payable to Orphan Foundation of America, and mark "Red Scarf Fund" in the memo line.

If you would more information about the fund and what it is used for, I've explained it in this post.

Random Wednesday

1.  Mr. Jefferies has coccidiosis, or at least an evaluation of his stool sample (yes, we had the poop!) revealed coccidia.  However, even before the sample was brought in to the vet, he seemed mostly back to his normal self in all respects.  He has his energy back, he is eating and drinking and peeing and pooping (and whining and teasing me for treats and to play with him endlessly).  Yay for normal bodily functions and behaviors.  He has medication (Albon) to take, and he will remain on the bland diet for the rest of the week, at least.  I think he had a very mild case of it, or more to the point, I think he has a strong immune system that recovered from it pretty quickly. Fricking people who don't pick up their dogs' poop.  And fricking him for eating it at every chance he can get (he's fast).  I'm quite sure that's where he got it.  I know he could get it from the ground even if people DID pick up their dogs' and cats' poop, because coccidia is microscopic. But having the poop right there for him to dine on like it's the greatest delicacy in the world increases the chances, I'm sure, a hundredfold.  

2.  The Paul Roberts talk on The End of Food was enjoyable and very illuminating.  I find him to be almost a clone of Michael Pollan -- or vice versa; I'm not sure who came first -- or maybe they were twins separated at birth -- but I saw Michael Pollan first, so to me HE was first -- and Roberts wore a suit, whereas Pollan wore a t-shirt that said, "Vote with your fork," (heh-heh) but the message is pretty much the same.  Roberts had some other important economic angles from which he addresses the subject, though. I commend you to go to his talk if he comes to your area -- or I should say I commend you to buy his book, I suppose.  

2 a) He did say a few times that, being in Burlington, Vermont, he knew he was preaching to the choir, and in my individual case, of course, that is true.  He reiterated the general message that Pollan delivered here last year:  The rest of the country is watching you, Vermont, when it comes to food production.  

2 b).  He said that "overnourished" is the new politically correct word for "obese."  Let's hear it for political correctness.  

2 c).  His talk did make me rue the quarts of berries and pounds of beans, et al., that I did not get put away for this year -- the ones I mentioned in my post last week or so.  And it made me eager to redouble my efforts to grow my own as much as possible and keep it local and small-scale as much as possible.  But, you know, that's nothing new.  I must buy some beets, if I can find some available at a local farmstand, and pickle them.  The beet harvest I gathered the other day from my own garden was too small to bother pickling any -- we'll eat them fresh.  We've already eaten about a third of them.  Yummilicious.

3.  To the growing-my-own end, yesterday I went to Gardener's Supply to get some Milky Spore to try to cut down the population of Japanese Beetles in my garden. They have risen to astronomical levels this summer, after having been kept at bay for quite a few years after my last application of the stuff.  They really did a number on the plum trees, the roses, the strawberry plants, the asparagus, and the green beans this year.  Hopefully next year they will be less in number.

4.  While at Gardener's Supply, I picked up packets of sprouting seeds for the winter, and microgreen seeds to give one last shot at growing something in my garden soil before winter sets in.  

I had a long chat with the owner? manager? (not sure which) at the shop yesterday, who indicated to me that the growing zones have all been moved up a half a zone as a result of global warming.  We talked about our mixed feelings about that.  As northern gardeners, we do appreciate the longer growing season and the greater range of things we can successfully grow, but it also seems to have an ominous feel to it.  Other parts of my state (sorry, Gayle) have already had at least two killing frosts, but we haven't been hit yet.  Knock on wood.

5.  I've had a number of more questions about the raised beds in my garden.  They are made of black plastic, they are very lightweight, super-easy to assemble, and inexpensive.  They also come from Gardener's Supply.  I can't recommend them highly enough.  They have changed my whole gardening life.  You could make your own raised beds by nailing boards together, but for my money these are so much easier (they literally take 3 seconds per corner to assemble, with no tools required), and they keep in the warmth and moisture a bit better, without the risk of getting slivers, cutting, measuring, or hammering my finger into oblivion.  Then again, if you've got some two-by-sixes or two-by-eights hanging around your house (not pressure-treated) and if lack of $39 for a Grow Bed is keeping you from growing some of your own food, then by all means, slap some of those puppies together and throw some soil in, some seeds in, water it, and grow something!  

6.  I'm still not sure what I'm going to do about Red Scarf Fund fundraising this year.  I have been offered a few prizes (I have some gorgeous red Signature Needle Arts needles sitting here beside me, for example, and some generous gift certificates from Anne Hanson, along with some hand-dyed yarns offered), but response and reaction to my mention of it was tepid at best. Not sure if it's worth the work and headaches.  I suppose anything is better than nothing, though.