Competition and Giveaway!

Remember the Homecrafts competition I was invited to enter? You can see the entries here. We were each sent a box of random yarns and asked to work our magic. I asked if I could use other yarns as well (no) and if I could use stuffing and wire (yes)...and as you know, came up with the two meerkats. They're one-of-a-kind because the yarns are so different from my usual.

Anyway, long story short wanna know who won?

 I want to share the love! I'm offering one lucky winner the choice of either of these very special niftyknits meerkats. To help you decide, you can see more pictures of them here.

How to enter?

Two ways. I'll put your name in the virtual hat for each entry, so if you choose to use both ways of entering, you've got two chances!

#1 leave a comment below saying which meerkat you'd like *and* a way to contact you. Don't forget, if your blogger profile is set to private I will NOT be able to find you there. 

#2 Go to any of my shops Folksy or Etsy or Zibbet , select your favourite item and come back here and leave the link. Again, please make sure you leave a way to contact you.

Good luck! I'll choose the winner randomly on Sunday evening (UK time) 12th August. Open to all, international, as always. Thank you once again, Homecrafts!

******************GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED**************
Thanks everyone - I'll announce the winner tomorrow.

Yarn competition: What did I make?

Remember the competition I told you about? Homecrafts sent me a box of yarn with the challenge to design and make something. I wasn't allowed to use any additional resources except for stuffing and wire...so I've been busily working.

I knew that the mottled wool would work as a meerkat, but because it was much thicker than the yarn I generally use I tweaked my pattern and made a new size, shown below with my big 11" kat and the normal 7" size:

I rather like the natural fur effect of the new yarn. I used the black for ears and eyes and tail end, and the plain cream for the highlight in his eyes.

Next I had to decide how to use the other yarns to dress him. I had pirates on my mind - did you see I was part of the Guinness Book of Records Challenge for most pirates on Hastings Beach? So I thought the black red and green would work well as a pirate's outfit. No additional resources - so no earring! 

I liked how the scarf turned out. I wasn't entirely sure how he'd want to wear it, so made a row of ear-sized holes all along the top edge. Once he'd decided where his ears would go, the end of the scarf could pull through one of the other holes and hold it fast. See the jagged edges of his trousers? 

I was very pleased to find I only used half the fur yarn, so of course had to make another meerkat! 

The multi-coloured sari yarn had screamed "coat of many colours" from the start, so here is Joseph Kat:

His coat is quite heavy, sari yarn isn't at all what I'd imagined it to be. It's really quite thick and solid, so I needed quite large needles. The colour blocks are random, some much bigger than others, but I think it works well as Joseph's technicolour dreamcoat!

Now all I have to do is wait to see what the other competitors have created with the same yarns, and discover how the winner will be chosen! 

Thanks for the challenge to Homecrafts!

A new challenge!

Last week I was invited to take part in a competition with 9 other craft bloggers.

I agreed, and a few days later a parcel of mixed yarns from Homecrafts  arrived!

Exciting! First yarn looks like it has possibilities as the base of my design.

Two quite fine yarns - I like the sparkly green, they'll be good for accents.

Cream and black - hmm, think I know what I'm going to do.

And finally - "WOW!" This is sari silk. According to my friend MrGoogle, it's recycled from leftover sari ends and then respun by hand. The colours are as vibrant as you'd imagine, lots of texture, all different thicknesses throughout the hank. This will be the defining feature of the design.

Now all I have to decide is which of my ideas to choose, and get knitting!

Valentine Meerkat Winner!

Thank you to everyone who signed up for my newsletter, I hope you're all going to enjoy hearing about new meerkats once in while!

I have used random.org and picked a winning number, and am waiting to hear from the 61st person who signed up so that I know where to send their meerkat.

Sorry to disappoint everyone else, but don't forget that right up until Valentines Day each "undressed" meerkat will bring you flowers!

www.Niftyknits.etsy.com
www.Niftyknits.folksy.com

Valentine Meerkat Giveaway!

The meerkat world tour is set to continue for quite some time yet (they're having way too much fun!) so I thought I should do a *half-time* giveaway. We'll still have the fabulous giveaways on the ETTEAM blog for the two world travellers and their wonderful collection of souvenirs, but right now it's your chance to win another little meerkat, this one with a posy of button flowers to show he loves you!

(Incidentally, all "simple" meerkats from Etsy or Folksy come with flowers, right up until Valentines Day)

"So what do I have to do?", I hear you cry!

Simples! All you have to do is sign up for my newsletter *click here*

Everyone who signs up before Tuesday at 6pm (UK time) will be put in a virtual hat, and I will draw the winner. I can't post the winner on here, because of course I will be keeping your emails confidential - but I will ask the winner to come and leave a "woohoo" comment!

Giveaway now closed, winner to be posted shortly. Many thanks everyone!

VOTE VOTE VOTE for Arosha's ring!

I'm proud to hand my blog over for the next few days to Arosha, silversmith extraordinaire, who is offering you the chance to name this gorgeous
sterling silver ring:



Arosha says:
"I asked you to send suggestions (via twitter and FaceBook) for a new name for this sterling silver ring:



There have been so many creative and inspiring answers that I couldn't make up my mind on just one - such a hard choice!

So please help me determine which is the best name for it by choosing your preferred one, remember that the person who suggested the name that receives most votes will win the ring - custom made to her size!

Arosha has narrowed the choice down to his top eight favorites. Which is your favorite? Remember, you can choose only one name - and the creator of that name will win the ring.

Voting will CLOSE at 8pm UK time (3pm Etsy time I think) Saturday and the winner will be announced here, but you can keep checking back to see how the votes are going. See Voter on the right>>>

Have you signed to Arosha's mailing list yet?

Please leave a comment to let us know you've voted - Arosha might want to say thank you xx
**************VOTING CLOSED************

YAY me! I win again!

A wile ago I entered a fiendishly difficult (but great fun!) contest on Laughing Daisy's blog. She showed us a picture of her button collection in which she'd hidden some birds - anyway, it brought my competitive nature to the fore and yesterday my prize arrived. I wasn't expecting anything like this much in the package!



There are some hairclips made from fabric-covered buttons, another couple of funky plastic hairclips, very retro! a temporary tattoo with which to horrify my grown-up kids, a dear little gift bag, a couple of gift tags, introductions to various new shops ... and some American candies!

Many thanks Mindy!

Please check out Mindy's shop LaughingDaisy
become a fan on facebook (I just have!)
encourage her to get going on twitter!

Competition time once more!

Yet more finds from my "decorating tidy up"

I have a dozen birthday cards suitable for children (or the young at heart!) with no envelopes - but they'll all fit in "normal" A5 envelopes.



I think I must have bought a bumper pack and then gradually used the envelopes for other purposes - either that or they're hiding. Ideal for the busy mum whose child announces at Breakfast that his best friend's birthday is TODAY.

To enter - leave me a funny story about a birthday. Easy! I'll pick the winner next weekend.

To start you off - halfway through my 40th year I was moaning about how I didn't like being 40. Mr Nifty looked at me with his usual patient expression and announced that I was actually still 39. I'd lost count.

My tiny tweet has arrived!

I entered a contest on feltmeup's blog and won my choice of tiny tweet!

I was almost too excited to choose, but I decided on pink feet and beak. He arived today - I had to lift him up to meet the seagull, he's so sweetly tiny!

If you can't wait until feltmeup decideds to run another competition, check out her shops here feltmeupdesigns.etsy.com and here feltanomicon.etsy.com and a closing down sale :-( here feltmeup.etsy.com

Feltmeup can also be found on twitter, of course.

Now I'm going back to coo over my tiny tweet!

Caption Contest

To celebrate my new range of greetings cards (which all feature my knitted meerkats and have been professionally printed by MOO.com) I'd like to invite you to create a caption. It needs to be witty (naturally!) and above all SHORT.

Mr Nifty and I had no end of ideas - some of them just didn't it on the cards, and some were funny in themselves (well, we thought so!) but didn't really work on greeting cards.

I mean - would you send a card saying "We come in peace, shoot to kill"???



To enter: leave a comment with your suggested caption for the card above with Picard, Geordi and Worf AND tell me which card is your favourite. Some are below in the collage picture, others are being gradually added to my shops.

You can enter again with another caption if you also follow my blog.

A third caption can be suggested if you follow me on Twitter.

Two more entries if you blog about the contest and leave me a link with your caption.

The prize will be £5 to spend in www.niftyknits.folksy.com or the dollar equivalent (today it's $8.30) in www.niftyknits.Etsy.com

Good luck - live long and prosper! All entries must be in blog comments as I might miss them on twitter.


Contest closed!

We have a winner!

Thank you to all who entered my giveaway! I asked everyone to choose their favourite item from my folksy shop, and also say which piece of knitted jewellery they'd like to win. Some of you only chose the jewellery - but then if that *is* your favourite piece, it's still valid.

I counted up 30 entries, and set rndom.org to work:






Entry number 2 is **jolicious**
She said...




My favourite non-meerkat item in your Folksy shop is this pin cushion



I like the colours and the little pot!

I would like to win the pink corsage featured in your blog entry. It's really pretty and I have just the jacket for it!



Send me your address Jolicious, and confirm this is the corsage you have chosen, and it will be on its way. Anyone who entered and was disappointed is welcome to convo me for a reduced rate on any Folksy knitted jewellery item in my shop.

I won a blog prize!

I entered a blog competition at http://oceansidecreations.blogspot.com and won a gift voucher to spend at www.OceansideCreations.etsy.com

After much deliberation I chose these lovely earrings.



Totoro isn't getting to keep them!

Time is ticking away....

tomorrow I will (with the aid of random.org) announce the winner of my meerkat giveaway.

To stick with our meerkat madness theme - I am proud to introduce the newest member of the niftyknits knitted meerkat mob:

Meerkat Time!



Yes, it really is a knitted meerkat with a clock in his tummy :-)

He had to have a spot of surgical intervention to allow for battery changing, but he was heavily sedated and it didn't hurt a bit.



Whatever next?

Meerkat dance-off

ok I said I wouldn't blog today - go read 5erg's interview yesterday!

but then I found this: meerkat dance off

Enjoy!

But fon't forget to read Surge's interview ;-)

One day left to enter my competition to win a meerkat, random.org will find the winner on Wednesday.

And the winner is...

... is it you? Well, if you were one of the 40 people who guessed the number of buttons in the jar, it might have been!



















If you guessed correctly, Naughty Nellie might be getting ready to be popped in the post...to you!




Shall I stop tormenting you now? ;-)





Here are the buttons, all laid out and ready to count...there were 91!

Nobody guessed the exact number, so Nellie is going to the person who guessed closest.

FairlyGirly was an early front runner, with her guess of 87 ... and then AMIdesigns guessed 87 too (tsk tsk, you didn't check back properly ;-))


*drumroll*
But the winner, with a guess of 88, was Adorn Me Jewelry!

Congratulations, Nellie will be in the post to you as soon as you've let me know your address.

Many thanks to eveyone who entered, I hope you will continue to follow my blog.

I have an idea for another competition in a few weeks time...this time involving a meerkat!

WARNING...adult content (if you're a frog, that is!)

You remember the frog spawn in my pond ?

Well, I just sent husband out into the wintry showers to fetch some logs.

"Quick, come quick!" he called.



When you've stopped spluttering, please scroll down and
enter my competition :-)

Competition time!

You may remember that I was joint winner of a competition organised by Folksy back in January?
So much yarn, so little time.: Folksy Make the News...
When I told the sponsor what I would like for my prize, it was with today's competition in mind. So - now that my prize has arrived - it's your turn!



In true school-bazaar tradition, your mission is to guess the number of buttons in the jar!

You can have several attempts.

To enter, one way is to become a follower of my blog. Leave a comment with your guess, tell me you're a follower. If you're already a follower, that's great - that counts too of course!



You can have a second try by going to either my Folksy shop or my Etsy shop and then leaving me a comment here with your guess and your favourite item from my shop.

For a third and fourth try - buy something from one of my shops and leave the details in a comment with your guesses!



If more than one person guesses correctly I will give the prize to the first correct guess, so it might be worth your while checking what other people have guessed.

But what's the prize?

When I started selling my knits I was very naive. I had no idea that buying a pattern did not give me the right to sell the product of that pattern. When the light dawned, I had to remove a few things sharpish!

Your prize is Nellie (seen here doing her Marilyn Monroe impression), knitted from a commercial pattern and therefore no longer for sale in my shop.



This competition is open to anyone and everyone from wherever you happen to live - good luck! I will check the guesses in one week's time on Wednesday March 11th. If more than one person has guessed the correct number I will give the prize to the first correct guess. If nobody has the exact number I will give the prize to the nearest guess. If there are two nearest guesses (one higher, one lower) I will give to the higher guess.

And if there's any other quibble I haven't thought of, please let me know!

THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED! I AM BUSILY COUNTING BUTTONS...

Folksy Make the News...

Well folks - it was a long and nerve-wracking day of waiting for the winner to be announced.

DaisieDavies (whose entry was a response to Facebook's decision to remove "offensive" photos of breastfeeding mothers)




and my shop's entry

(in memory of Oliver Postgate)




were neck and neck all day long, but at the end of the evening there was a sudden flurry of very dodgy-looking votes so poor old Folksy admin had to burn the midnight oil sorting out individual IP addresses.

The judges decided to award a tie, so both Daisie and myself now get £20 to spend in Robson and Mason.

Thanks very much to all our voters - and please come back and check out FOLKSY at your leisure, now the excitement of voting has died down!