Sunday, May 24, 2009

Win things! Plus, virtual camp

In just over a week we will be celebrating a most solemn and auspicious occasion--my two year blogiversary. That's right, I've been at this for two years. It been quite a bumpy ride, but I'll do more reminiscing in my June 2 post (which, given my blogging performance lately, will probably be late).

So in honor of the big day, I'm hosting a little contest. All you have to do to be entered is leave a comment on this post telling me the ugliest thing you've ever knit. Whatever the reason--bad yarn, didn't follow the pattern, knitting gnomes, etc.--everyone has at least one atrocious project they'd like to forget about. If you can link to it on your blog or rav projects, all the better. (And don't forget to make sure I know who you are--don't comment anonymously!)

And what can you win for sharing your embarrassing knitting atrocity? Yarn, of course! I've accumulated a ridiculous amount of sock yarn, considering I haven't managed to finish a single pair of socks yet in 2009, so I'll be giving away a skein to TWO lucky winners. I'm not sure which yet, but you can see (most of) my stash here--it may be one of these, or may be a skein I haven't managed to log yet (don't worry, it'll be something good). I'll draw random numbers and announce the winner and the yarns on my June 2nd blogiversary post!

Please, spread the news about the contest, I'd love to have new readers, even though I rarely post anything worth reading.

A few unrelated notes:

First, for my dear Leann who was unceremoniously and most unfairly booted from Ravelry, here are the non-Rav links to the patterns I mentioned in my last post:

Elefante

Moderne Baby Blanket

Trellis and Keyhole Tank

Also, if anyone is looking for a fun summer swap, check out HSKS 8: Summer Camp. HSKS 7 was loads of fun, so I definitely plan to sign up again. It's a fun group of swappers, and there's a lot going on other than just shipping yarn off to an anonymous stranger, so check it out!

24 comments :

Kassia said...

Wow. Just found your blog courtesy of The Yarniad and I'm the first to comment! Happy Blogiversary and add me to the drawing please! :)

Hmm....ugliest knitted item ever....I think the fancy fur scarf I made for my daughter (she was 3 at the time) has to take the cake. Neon pink with little bits of blue and purple. The worst part is that she pulled a lot of the little bits out, so the yarn no longer holds together and it's been shedding neon pink eyelashes all over the place. It's like the gift that keeps on giving- I threw away the damn thing about 6 mos ago and I'm still finding eyelashes around the house occasionally.

Mrs. Homesteader said...

Thanks for the links! Elefante is beyond adorable!

HSKS Summer Camp looks like fun too! Right up my complete Harry Potter nerd alley. :-)

Oh, and the most hideous thing I ever knitted was a cotton halter top. It was the second thing I ever knit. On the surface, doesn't look too hideous (just ignore the picture of me looking like a train wreck.) But it really didn't fit (I knit the front and back in two different sizes, then seemed them together), didn't suit my body type at all (it was quickly noted never to wear ribs in a chunky yarn ever, every again), and it just kept growing and growing and, being a knitting newbie, I had no idea why. I'm not quite sure what happened to it...

Clumsy Knitter said...

How fun! By far the ugliest things I have ever knit are my slippers (http://www.ravelry.com/projects/ClumsyKnitter/grown-up-booties). But I wear them EVERY DAY. They have huge holes in the bottoms now where my heels and toes stick out. Might be time for a new pair!

Oh, and happy (early) blogiversary!!!

kristin said...

hi kristen! just found a link to your blog from the yarniad...looking forward to checking in often. i am in the middle of my ugliest project ever (1 sock done, 1 to go) i love the yarn...gypsy girl in wizzard colorway, but it knitted up into the ugliest sock ever. colors swirl down the cuff, stripe through the heal flap and gusset, and block 1/2 & 1/2 down the foot. he found the yard in my stash, though, and asked for socks in such a sweet may that i must plow forward and give them to him for his 10th birthday next week. hope he plans to wear them with boots ; )

kristin
kristinknits@comcast.net

Kenyetta said...

The ugliest thing I ever knit...hmmm...almost everything I have made from fun fur. Or the poncho I made from Sirdar YOYO that everyone thinks is a cat!

Liz said...

I found your blog through Ravelry. Quite nice.

As for the ugliest thing I've ever knit, it has to be a long knitted sweater coat. It just turned out so....ugh... I'm not sure if it was a gauge problem, or if I just picked yarn that didn't drape well. All in all, it's like wearing a very heavy potato sack. It's so hideous that I refuse to even acknowledge it with a picture. But it's long and grey with green cuffs made out of Knitpicks wool of the andes.

Jags said...

I think my ugliest thing was a scarf made from this horrible yarn bee stuff. It has these little fiber whisps that just fall out and shed everywhere.

I made the mistake of wearing it with a black shirt, and it was a rainbow shirt by the end of the night!

Sharon Rose said...

This is so fun! Just recently I finished a shawl I'd been working on for ages. Just stockinette but I only knit on it here and there between other complicated projects. Finally done - I bound, off, tried it on, and realized the colors are AWFUL!!!! At least on me... yuck. Still haven't decided if I should "gift" it or just frog. Sigh.

Sharon Rose said...

Oops - forgot the link -
http://www.ravelry.com/projects/needlegrrl/traditional-danish-tie-shawl

adrienne said...

congrats on your two year blogiversary.

this has to be one of the ugliest things i have ever knit (& frogged). it is mostly that i don't like the colors.

http://www.ravelry.com/projects/bellybuttonknits/entrelac-scarf

Kristen said...

My ugliest knitted item is probably the Lace Ribbon Scarf that I made with some spring green alpaca. Unfortunately when I finished I fould a big HOLE about 1/3 of the way through it where I must have done some crazy yarnovers or something. I wore it a few times "artfully draped" to hide the hole, but it still bothers me. So I think I'll have to frog it and start over. :(

Jen said...

Hi! So far, the ugliest thing I have knit was a heart-shaped washcloth that I just improvised. I was trying to do a lacy heart inside, and I am not sure what I did, but it looks like a knotted tangle of yarn. Second prize goes to one of my first projects, a hat that I improvised using Red Heart. My mom claimed it and wears it, but I am positive she does it out of some misguided attempt to assure me that it's not that bad.

Thanks for the giveaway!
Jen (zgma on Ravelry)

AmIAKnitterYet said...

ugly? well I have to say that is a lot of what I knit. OHHHH Wait a minute, I made a purple and black striped pointy hat from my toddler once-kinda like a cat in the hat style. It turned out big enough for a grownup--but none of us would ever where it lol.

now, your sock yarn has potential though for something useful.

Congrats on your blogaversery

Turtle said...

Hi there...for an anniversary a few years back i figured i would knit up a cute lingerie set....not only did it look horrible on me, it looked horrible off of me as well. Just not a cute or pretty , or anything nice about it!!! Stiff, ugly, now waiting in a box to be frogged for something else someday! No pic of it (truly that ugly) bug my blog links through myname! smile

Suzie said...

Hi! I really enjoyed reading your blog and hence put it on my Google Reader so I do not miss any more posts. This is an inspired contest-when I think about all the things I have knitted throughout the years, I only seem to remember the outstanding (IMHO) ones I have managed to make. Last year, I bought Zoe Mellor's Knitted Toys so I could knit a stuffed toy for my toddler. I picked the Big Foot Bunny pattern, and, as you can see, it looks more like something straight out of Tim Burton's A Nightmare Before Christmas! My son likes it a lot and has even put it in his bed with him at night a couple times. Happy Blogiversary!!

JuliaA said...

ugliest? there was the scarf i tried to knit from (argh) lion brand suede. i wasn't all that aware of what was good yarn, adn thought it was pretty. it was horrid to knit, and looked uneven and ridiculous. i frogged it and swapped it.

and then there was my adventure with a difficult colorway--knitpicks' chisholm. it was beyond ugly in every stitch i tried it in...sometimes because of pooling, sometimes because it was just a combo of colors that looked really really unfortunate in almost every way i tried to knit it. i swapped most of it, and cleared out the pics of the hideousness so my flickr wouldn't get too clogged.

and then there was my attempt at a MSCS in lion brand landscapes. the pink colorway in that yarn seems like the only one that's attractive.

i've knit with enough ugly yarns that i just can't make up my mind!

Unknown said...

The ugliest thing I ever made was definitely my first attempt at a crochet sweater. Even though the pattern called for worsted, I subbed bulky (thick and thin, no less)and ended up with a garment that could stand up on its own and made me look like a fuzzy fat smurf... oh, good times...

Anonymous said...

My ugliest is recent, and it's not knit, it's crochet (does it still count?). I tried making a bag using fun fur. I like the color, but it just looks weird. Hubby says it reminds him of a hooker's sweater. Pictures can be seen at http://nulandnews.blogspot.com/2009/05/bags-o-plenty.html (including a bag I'm proud of).

Unknown said...

my most ugliest knitted item was a halter top for one of my twin daughers. I followed the instructions pefectly but it as huge and the bottom did ths funky thing of half rolling up. it was bad ugly.

Lauria said...

I think the ugliest thing I attempted to crochet was a free-form... thing. I went about it entirely haphazardly thinking that I could do so because it was "free form" and therefore could break no rules. It looked so bad I gave up partway. I used a neon yellow yarn with a scratchy red acrylic yarn and it looked like mustard and ketchup in the worst possible way!!


Congratulations on your two year blog-iversary!!

Dove Knits said...

I've made some projects that turned out disappointing, but I think the ugliest has been this afghan that I thankfully had enough sense not to finish. I mean, really, what was I thinking?

Lexi said...

Congratulations on your blogiversary!

The ugliest thing I knit had so much potential, but then I killed it in a moment of not thinking straight. It was a bikini top that I was doing in pastel rainbow yarn edged in brown (might sound awful, but I really love the combination). It's the one from Stitch and Bitch and I was adding a heart motif to one of the sides. It's done in brown, but when I finished, because of the shaping of the top, it looked round rather than like a heart. So basically, one of the cups of the bikini top looks like it has a big brown nipple. Not pretty. Combine that with the bottom piece where I got really lazy about following the instructions for sizing, and it's a thing of horror. But I still kind of love it.

LexisKnits on Ravelry

Unknown said...

congrats on your blogiversary!!!

ugliest thing i had ever knit was my first scarf it was out of the camouflage acrylic yarn by red heart it was horrible looking and feeling yucky

vbarton24 at gmail dot com

jenn said...

Fun contest. I haven't been knitting very long so I don't have anything really embarrassing to share as of yet. Plus, when it looks like it'll be a disappointment, I stop immediately.

I did get a few panels into the Sweet Dreams Throw with Suri Alpaca from KnitPicks, and then frog it and put it away due to a "flashing" in the yarn. I hate flashing. A lot.

I've had some EPIC fails in quilting, though. Cut an entire quilt's worth of a directional fabric the chimeric way- no piece fit together with any other piece. Good thing it was free fabric, but I was WAY angry!!!

I'm vetstudentjenn on ravelry. Wish me luck!