Monday, September 8, 2008

Contest!!

So...Wednesday the 10th of September is an important day. Why, boys and girls? Well, for one thing, it's my step-mom's birthday. So Happy Birthday, Barbara!

But it's also this blog's first birthday. If it were Rachel it would be talking up a storm and making us all laugh but not yet walking. I hope it occasionally makes you laugh.

So...a contest. I have some knitting books to give away.

  • Two nice Harmony stitch dictionaries, which will travel as one prize (one is 250 creative knitting stitches, the other is 220 Aran stitches).
  • A hardback copy of Sasha Kagan's Country Inspiration.
  • A paperback copy of Kristin Nicholas' Knitting the New Classics.

(No, the Alice Starmore books are not being given away.)

And all you have to do to enter is write me a little poem. Or a haiku. Or limerick. The only catch? You have to use at least one of the following words. Bonus points for each additional word. Extra bonus points if you make the verse somehow about knitting.

patella
lachrymose
taciturn
WHOA BOY!
spangle
crepuscular
behemoth
marzipan
parchment

The other option would be to write a verse incorporating as many yarn names as you can cram in.

Heh. Let's give this one a week. I'm not sure how the judging will go. It may be names in a hat. There may be three verses that knock my socks off, that are head and shoulders above the rest. And first prize will get first choice of books, second prize second choice, third prize the left-over.

Does that sound fiendish enough?



12 comments:

Chris said...

No need to enter me - I think I actually have all of those books! :)

Knitting a body
from parchment is no small feat...
Start at patella.

Rooie said...

And Chris has thrown down the gauntlet...!!!

Anonymous said...

Happy Blogiversary!

Total blank on the verse (and not blank verse either, yet.) I've got those two books too. And the Starmores. So don't sweeten the pot. :)

Kaethe said...

I know not of knitting, but I love your word list. You included many of my favorites.

I can only tell your patella from your purl
because I know my body parts like spleen and islets of langerhans
When you wax rhapsodic about knitting
I read on
For the cats and the Rax
And all the beautiful colors of yarn
Glowing from my monitor
In the crepuscular light of dawn
Or dusk

Anonymous said...

Happy birthday to your blog!

I am no poet, so what I came up with is about as far from high culture as you can get! :)

----------

The crepuscular light peeked through the curtain spangles
Casting tiny dancing spots onto the wall
In the silence she turned a taciturn face to the behemoth on the shelf:
Four skeins of Malabrigo, wound together into one ball
Taking a step toward it, she felt her patella snap
WHOA BOY!
The light shifted
And darkness spilled in
As she rested in her chair
Red-eyed and lachrymose
The yarn lay across the room, still out of reach
She unwrapped the parchment
And comforted herself with the marzipan that lay within

teabird said...

Happy blogiversary!

(I have the stitch books)

Whoa boy! A behemoth!
Taciturn, lachrymose beast
Cries elephant tears


teabird / ravelry

Rooie said...

I was so busy at work this morning but at one point I thought, "You idiot. You made that task on your blog much too hard...and yet stupid. No one's going to bother with it."

And look at all you clever people! I love it. And Kaethe, just for you, if you're a winner I'll send a non-knitting book your way.

Rooie said...

And that goes for Chris, too!

Anonymous said...

Are you thinking of that Robert Frost poem where he rides his big, old horse with the bad knees through the gloaming? It's very sad.

Turtle said...

Whoa Boy! I gasped,
Knitting with marzipan sticks!
Taciturn, knit on!

Ok, my lame effort! Good words!

Anonymous said...

Feeling lachrymose
Odd for someone taciturn
But then, maybe not

Anonymous said...

Ha! Here goes...

Parchment peels from a marzipan sheet
crisp like blocked Malabrigo from the towel it rests.
A spangled behemoth in Sealing Wax lace...
floating, crepiscular in the twilight.