MAKE/CRAFT Halloween contest 2011 is open!

For all you crafty/DIY types, there's a contest running on the Make and Craft Web sites. You can enter anything you make with a Halloween theme — well, anything as long as it fits into one of the four categories: Costume, Prop, Decor or Food.

The prizes are all crafty/makey things, of course, like a Dremel tool and a Singer sewing and embroidery machine. Click here for the details.

The contest ends at the end of November 8, 2011. If you enter, drop a line and let me know!

Help us win a grant, and you could win $250!

(Possible) money for everybody this holiday season! ;)

Here's the deal: Help us win a $5,000 small business grant, and you could win a $250 Visa gift card. Is that cool, or what?

The rules for the "Love a Local Business Holiday Challenge" are so:

1. Nominate a small business for the grant. (Okay, you don't have to nominate us — you can nominate any business you like! We'd like it if you help us out, but we won't be mad if you don't. ;))
2. E-mail the business with a link to the Love a Local Business contest page and let them know you nominated them — and don't forget to CC Intuit on the e-mail.
3. You'll get a confirmation message from Intuit letting you know you're entered.

Pretty easy! So head on over to Intuit and make your nomination! If you do help us out, search for Star and Crossbones in Palm Harbor, FL. We won't show up on the Google map since we don't have a physical store (...yet?), but we're in there!

The Holiday Challenge ends on December 31, so you might as well go over right now while you're thinking about it, right? ;)

Just some random linkage...

There's a cute Charmed Knits KAL blog that has a free "house hats" pattern -- whee! I'm saving that link for later, since there's no way I'm allowed to start another Thing, considering that my current Things are all on hold while I take a mini brain vacation and play a lot of Minish Cap while waiting for the rain. ;) The Charmed Knits KAL is donating to Warm Woolies, too, so it's not just HPish fun, it's charitable HPish fun.

There's also a stashbuster drawing for some yarn over at Pheelya's Ramblings blog ... Go forth and win! ;D (You're supposed to tell her when you leave your entry comment that you found the contest off my blog, although I'm not entirely sure why...)

Another contest: clothing design

BurdaStyle is having a clothing design contest; the deadline for this one is June 15. Hmm...

Another sewing contest ;D

This one is from Etsy, and it's the "Sew Helpful" contest. Entries are due June 15. Hmmm. What can I make that's useful? :D

Riddikulus!

...Okay, it didn't turn my giant stash or pile of projects into something sillier (though one could argue the giganto-ness of both is pretty silly to begin with; maybe that's why it didn't work ;)), but it was worth a shot. Many times many updates today.

First, weaving: I tried out the 12-inch square loom last night. It's super-easy and fast, and now after looking at all the idiotically pretty pictures in the TriLoom gallery, I want a triangle loom. I really really want a triangle loom. I want to make crazy woven pretties with the pre-warp and cut length stuffs.



That's the first square I made, still on the loom. I made three last night, in Wool-Ease (worsted weight, which I never noticed was so uneven in weight till I saw it in the open weave), and so far one today. Still no real idea what I'm going to do with them. A wrap? A pillow? They're pretty lacy, and I'm not entirely sure whether washing them will take care of that, or what will. More research to be done.

I think I'll try to make a tote bag on the square loom today, since I'm supposed to make a bag for the mildly late Earth Mother's Day swap.

You can also see in the above picture that the table is still swamped by my piles of wool to be processed, but I did make it through the short-staple hand-carded bits last night, and it worked much better than before. Whew. Plus it got out a huge amount of VM, which is a wonderful fringe benefit. I only have one little bag of that left to card ... and I should be done with it just in time for the next two destash boxes to arrive. Eep. ;) I'm upgrading with these next two boxes, and I got them for less than the first box, entertainingly enough: one box is silk/Merino laps, and the other is pre-dyed fiber that needs carding. I also need another processed batts box, as I seem to have reached capacity on the other one without squishings going on.

In more wool (or at least fiber) processing news, I love the Spindlers list. I asked how to dehair llama by hand, and behold! An answer is given. So probably as soon as I know whether to wash it before I try to dehair it, I'll embark on that project, so I can card (or comb) the nice llama.

Finally, there was a contest being held at UFO Knit Club, and apparently ... I won. As you can see from my comment there, this baffles me somewhat. ;) I can't decide now whether to ask for spinning fiber or knitting stuff, since I do both. I'm marginally leaning toward spinning fiber, but it does kind of depend on what spinning stuff it is vs. what knitting stuff it is...

Sewing contests

These might be just the thing for getting me off my butt and making me sew again ... and something for me, no less. ;D Simplicity is having a Creative Contest for patterns with the "Threads" or "Sew Stylish" label, and the grand prize is a trip to Paris, and the other is held in conjunction with the American Sewing Guild. For the first one I'd be vaguely interested in using 4072 to make a beachy cover-up or summery festival dress...