How to Win a Coffee Cozy

So, by now I’m sure you’ve seen this year’s CureSearch Auction, where you can win/buy a pair of my Give A Hoot mitts and help fight pediatric cancer. Well, for 2012 I decided to step it up a notch – you can ALSO win a Saxon braid coffee cozy!

You know those little cardboard sleeves you get on your morning coffee, or your afternoon chai? Every time you use a reusable coffee cozy like this one, one less cardboard sleeve ends up in the garbage! So, it’s earth-friendly, it’s cute, and because it’s made with wool it keeps your hands cool and your beverage hot. When you’re done with your drink, it also makes an excellent wrist-warmer/bracelet. (Check out my etsy listing for more info.)

You can enter the raffle in one of four ways:

1. Place a bid on the Give A Hoot mitten auction. Even if you’re not the winning bidder, throwing your hat into the ring will earn you a chance here! (If you’ve been outbid and decide to up your offering, EACH comment earns you another entry here, bonus!)

2. Refer a friend to the auction. If someone places a bid and mentions in their comment that you sent them there, you’ll get an extra raffle entry!

3. Donate to CureSearch between now and midnight on Halloween directly through Brian’s page, then comment on this post telling me all about it. You don’t have to disclose the amount, just let us know you chipped in.

4. Buy any normal item in the TTL etsy store between now and midnight on Halloween. That’s it! Anyone who shops with me in the next five days is automatically entered.

Entries will be accepted until midnight on Halloween, the same time the auction ends. The winner will be chosen sometime on November first using a random number generator and notified via this blog, so keep watching! The winner gets to choose what color coffee cozy they’d like, this dusty rose one is for display purposes only.

Good luck!

CureSearch Auction 2012!

EDIT: Congratulations to this year’s winner, Sarah Johnson! I have decided to match Sarah’s winning bid of $20, so I’ll be donating $40 to Brian’s CureSearch Walk page tonight! Thanks, all, see you next year.

I intended to post the 2012 Curesearch Auction (check out 2011’s auction!) earlier in the month, but I got married on the 13th and then went straight out on our honeymoon, so it kind of got lost in the shuffle. So now, we’re going to have a lightning FIVE DAY SUPER-INTENSE MEGA AUCTION!

How would you like to buy a super-cozy pair of my “Give A Hoot” mitts AND contribute towards finding a cure for pediatric cancer?

My friend Brian is participating in the 2012 Charlotte CureSearch Walk, and I wanted to figure out a way to contribute. Here at Through The Looking, we love kids and hate cancer, so we’re auctioning off a pair of these mitts in oatmeal (the color shown). Bidding starts *now* and will remain open through midnight (EST) on Halloween!

Brian has this to say last year:

Dear Friends,
Please support me in my efforts to raise money for pediatric cancer research. I have been a supporter of CureSearch for several years now as they are one of the leading organizations dedicated to finding a cure for pediatric cancers. Please visit my personal donation page.
Thanks!!

You can donate directly on Brian’s page.

For more information about the mitts, and to see a few more pictures, please see the normal etsy listing, but do *not* bid there.  (Feel free to do some shopping, though!  10% of ALL sales between now and October 31st at midnight will also be donated to CureSearch!)

To bid on the mitts, please comment on this post with your name and bid amount. Make sure you enter your email address when commenting – it won’t be visible, but I need it so I can contact the winner!

The bidding starts at $5, do I hear $5?

THE FINE PRINT:
Bidding will be open until midnight (EST) on Halloween, at which time I will notify the winner and create a custom Etsy listing for them to purchase, reflecting their winning bid amount!

Please note, once you’ve commented with a bid you are responsible to pay that amount unless you are outbid. Whoever has the highest bid at midnight on Halloween will be notified that they’ve won. The winner will have 48 hours to pay for the item through Etsy (a link will be sent via email). If the winning bidder does not pay within 48 hours, they give up their right to the item. The second highest bidder will then be contacted, and so on and so forth.

Of the winning bid, $5 goes to Through The Looking to cover materials and Etsy fees, all other proceeds will be donated directly to Brian’s CureSearch page in the winning bidder’s name.

My First Sorting Day!

I joined the Harry Potter Knitting/Crochet House Cup for the first time this term. I’m anxiously awaiting my first Sorting Day, where I’ll find out what House I’m competing for! This calls for poetry:

My first sorting day,
I sit here with bated breath,
Only hours now!

Ravenclaw I think
Is the house where I belong,
It feels right to me.

But the sorting hat,
What will he see when he looks
deep within my heart?

I trust in the hat.
Sort me as you will, wise one!
And I’ll call it home 🙂

Life Without Ravelry

Breaking news! Ravelry is currently stuck in their longest downtime ever! Knitters all over the world are *actually finishing projects*.

Or they’re just obsessively refreshing the Ravelry twitter account, praying for news…

If you’re not a knitter, or you somehow miraculously don’t have any unfinished objects that need attention, you could peruse this list of 50 things to do if ravelry goes down.

Edit: Oh no, ETSY was down for a while earlier today! What is going on?! Is Craftster next?

Wedding Bunting: A Pattern!

As we’re getting married in a public nature preserve, we need to follow strict “carry in/carry out” rules when it comes to decorations for the ceremony. Leave nothing behind but footprints and beautiful memories!

This is a pattern for a simple triangle with a little textural interest. Once I’ve collected enough, they’ll be knit together with a simple I-cord. Then, we can just run in and drape them from a few branches moments before the ceremony!

For One Triangle:

Worsted weight yarn
Sz. 9 (5.5mm) needles
Gauge – 4 to 4.5 (will be heavily blocked)

Cast on 3 stitches (I prefer long-tail, but whatever)
Row 1: k3
Row 2: k1, m1p, k1, m1p, k
Row 3: k1, (p1, k1) 2x
Row 4: k1, p1, m1k, k1, m1k, p1, k1
Row 5: k1, (p1, k1) 3x
Row 6: k1, p1, k1, m1k, k1, m1k, k1, p1, k1
Row 7: k1, p1, k1, p3, k1, p1, k1
Row 8: (k1, p1, k1) 3x
Row 9: k1, p1, k1, p3, k1, p1, k1
Row 10: k1, p1, k1, m1k, k to last 3 sts, m1k, k1, p1, k1
Row 11: k1, p1, k1, p to last 3 sts, k1, p1, k1
Row 12: k1, p1, k2, (p1, k1) to last 3 sts, k1, p1, k1
Row 13: k1, p1, k1, p to last 3 sts, k1, p1, k1
Row 14: k1, p1, k1, m1k, k to last 3 sts, m1k, k1, p1, k1
Row 15: k1, p1, k1, p to last 3 sts, k1, p1, k1

Repeat rows 12 through 15 until you have a total of 25 sts (including borders)

K 3 rows in seed stitch, then bind off loosely.

Block so that the top edge is 8″ wide, and the point is 10″ down from the center of top edge.

M1k – pick up the bar between the stitch you just worked and the next stitch on the left needle, knit into this “stitch”
M1p – same as above, but knit into the bar you picked up
Seed stitch: k1, (p1, k1) to end of row

Edited to add:
To my wonderful HPKCHC knitters who want to help me with this massive undertaking, you don’t *have* to follow this pattern! All I ask is that you follow three simple guidelines:

• Yarn should be wool if possible, or a nice-feeling wool blend. These will be sewn together into a blanket after the wedding!
• Colors should be either natural or autumnal. Solid, semi-solid, or striped banners are totally fine, just stick to the orange/brown/red/whatever scheme plz 🙂
• Banners should be able to block to 8″ by 10″

Check out the Ravelry pages for this project and the pattern!

Wedding Knitting!

In case you didn’t know, the girl behind TTL (that would be me, Alice) is getting MARRIED!

Me and my guy, Thanksgiving 2011

He’s a journalist and I’m a part time legal secretary/etsy seller, so needless to say money is tight. The only way we can *possibly* plan a wedding is with a lot of help from our friends and a healthy amount of DIY projects.

This, obviously, lead me to thinking about what I could *knit* for the wedding! I decided very early on that I want to knit myself a veil, so I started scouring the internet looking for just the right combination of yarn and pattern. It has been a frustrating search, but I think I’ve come up with a few good leads… I’ll have a whole post about the veil soon, though, so I’ll tell you more about it there!

I think I’m also going to try and knit as much of my bouquet and the decorations as I can, too, but I’m a lot more flexible about that stuff. I think I’ll just start knitting and see how far I can get along the way!

Stay tuned, I promise I’ll share all of my fun wedding projects here along the way 😀

New Hat and Free Pattern – Vinter Hat!

Ah, fair isle… I love it so, but my hands don’t! One of my resolutions for 2012 is to complete a fair isle sweater, and if I’m *ever* going to reach that goal, I have some serious work to do. I designed this hat as a way to start training my hands to cooperate while holding two strands of yarn at once. To all the stranded-color hopefuls out there, I recommend giving this a shot! By the end of the straight section of the hat, I was feeling much more comfortable!

(This is a very basic teaser shot, I’ll be replacing it when I get a chance to do a real photo shoot.)

Yarn:

• Main color (MC) – Patons Classic Wool, 100% pure new wool, 223 yds/100 g, Woodrose Heather, approximately 110 yards needed
• Contrast color (CC) – Lion Brand Fisherman’s Wool, 100% pure virgin wool, 465 yds/227 g, Oatmeal, approximately 30 yards needed (I think?)

Supplies:
1 16″ size 8 (5.0mm) needle
1 16″ size 4 (3.5mm) needle
4 size 8 DPNs
1 stitch marker

Gauge:
4.5 sts and 6 rows per inch over flea pattern
4 sts and 7 rows per inch over ribbing

Lice Pattern:
Row 1 – k 1 MC, k 1 CC
Row 2 – K all in MC
Row 3 – K 1 CC, K 1 MC
Row 4 – K all in MC

Pattern:

Cast on 80 stitches loosely (I suggest using the sz 8 needle to cast on).
With the size 4 needle (or whatever is needed to obtain gauge), work in k2p2 ribbing for 20 rows.
Switch to the size 8 needle, (K 5, make one stitch) all around, you now have 96 stitches
K 1 round in MC
Work in lice pattern for approximately 4″ (for me, this was 6 repeats), and end with either row 1 or row 3.
Start decreasing – Instead of either row 2 or 4 in Flea pattern, (k 14, k 2 together) all around with MC.
Work next row in Flea pattern
(K 13, K 2 together) all around with MC.
Work next row in Flea pattern

Continue like this until you have 48 stitches on the needles (switching to DPNs when needed).
At this point, continue in Flea pattern but decrease on *every* round now.
When 12 stitches remain on the needles, break yarn and pull through the remaining stitches.

Sew in all ends, lightly block (the body of the hat, *not* the ribbing), and enjoy!

(IF YOU KNIT THIS PATTERN, please let me know what you think of it! Hit me up at through.the.looking@gmail.com with any questions, comments, errors, or just to say hi!)

Geek Gift Guide: Twilight

I’m not going to lie… I’m very conflicted when it comes to Twilight.

On one hand, it just plain makes me angry. The books are poorly written, the story is half-formed, and the main characters are just plain obnoxious.

On the other hand, I love the base elements of the story. (I’ve often been heard to say that in the hands of a better writer, I’d love it unconditionally!) I love many of the supporting characters in the movie – I think the entire Cullen family does a spectacular job, and Bella’s dad is just the sweetest. But most of all, I *love* all the imagery (and knits!) it inspires! Combining Native American legends, the pacific northwest, vampires… yes please!

Twi-hard: With a Vengeance

Shopping for your favorite Twilight fan? Just like an overprotective vampire boyfriend, Etsy is always there for you!

(I was reluctant to include one of my own items in a treasury, but I couldn’t leave the mittens out!)

Geek Gift Guide: Dr. Who

Making up for lost time… with this guide, I’m now current!

The Doctor Who Gift Guide

Etsy: It’s bigger on the inside!

Hello sweetie, I hope you find just the right thing for your companion!

Geek Gift Guide: Star Wars

Once again, this is most definitely a topic that could have been further broken down… it was *agony* narrowing this down to just 16 items!

I hope you, my lovely readers, are enjoying these guides! I am *such* a fan of Etsy (not just because of my store), and I am really enjoying this opportunity to introduce y’all to the width and breadth of what you can find there.

A long time ago, in a treasury far far away…

Show your rebel spirit, give some handcrafted Star Wars love for the holidays!