Meathead Winners

Thanks to all who participated in the Meathead Contest, or who simply went over to Larissa's site to donate to the cause by purchasing a pattern. (If you haven't gone over the pattern is still available until noon PST, so run over fast!) I purchased patterns for the following five contest winners this morning:

Michele mi.yuck (AT) gmail (DOT) com
Alli allirosen (AT) hotmail (DOT) com
Lori jezebel99 (AT) earthlink (DOT) net
Charity stuart434 (AT) shaw (DOT) ca
Sarah sarah.shoemaker1 (AT) marist (DOT) edu

Larissa should be sending you the pattern shortly by e-mail. Please be patient - I'm sure she has many patterns to send out. If you don't hear from her in a few days, however, please let me know and I'll be sure to follow up. Thanks also to the generous folks who agreed to help me knit meatheads for the family. I will contact you to coordinate details as soon as I have more information on sizes and genders.

You guys are the best!!! Love, J

Last Day of the Meathead Contest

If you missed my meathead contest post, you can still purchase the pattern from Larissa today, and I will be taking entries until tomorrow morning when I randomly draw winners to donate for. I will not know whether the winners purchased the pattern independently, and I do want to earnestly encourage you to participate regardless of whether you are able to donate yourself. I'm going to pay for the five patterns using the winners' e-mail addresses, so each winner will be sent a copy of the pattern whether they need it or not. Please don't be shy - just enter! At last count, Larissa had managed to raise over $600 for Cassie, which is really, really impressive. Thanks to everyone for their efforts, purchases and donations.

Click the photo for a close-up.
Apologies for the photo quality - the sun is not yet up!*

Since I really wanted to put my money where my mouth was, I went ahead and whipped out my own meathead on Monday night. It took about an hour and it's adorable. I originally intended to make this one for myself, but I was lazy about gauge and ended up with a child-sized hat. And then it occurred to me that Cassie and her children should each have one of these hats. I know it may seem like a trivial thing to make hats for a family in the face of such tragedy, but I think that although it is a small thing, it is important to have little reminders in our lives that other people care more than we know, and that help can come from unexpected places.

I do not know how many children Cassie has, or their ages or genders, but I am sure that Larissa will get me that information. I've knit a hat that is suitable for a little girl. Since many of you have the pattern, is there anyone who would like to volunteer to make one of the other hats? If you can help out with a hat, please leave me a note in the comments and we'll coordinate to make this happen.

*Worked in one strand of Lamb's Pride Bulky and one strand of Manos on US 13 needles; the leaf was worked using only the Manos doubled, on US 10's, but I think I'm going to re-knit it - perhaps in brown? thoughts anyone?- to make it stand out better visually.

Contest: Be a Meathead! (For a Good Cause, Too.)

Over years of blogging there are certain knitters that I feel I have formed a tacit friendship with. We may not correspond by e-mail regularly, but we keep up with each other through the blogs, and over time develop a fondness for each other. Larissa Brown of Stitch Marker is one of those bloggers. I've followed her blog for almost three years now since I first saw her version of my honeymoon cami. We've corresponded here and there about trips to Belize and cycling, she knit along in my Charlotte's Web KAL and I knit along in her scrap along. This year, Larissa and her husband have been working on a book about knitalongs, and have run a few really fun KALs for that project. One of them involved a knitalong for Larissa's meathead hats, which she initially created for an art installation. I signed up for the KAL, but the deadline was tight and I had a pattern due for publication at the same time, so I never finished - the pattern and yarn have been sitting in my stash waiting for me to return to them. The KAL was wildly successful and included some really beautiful and unique meatheads, some of which are featured below.

Click on the photo to see more meatheads.

The pattern was not supposed to be available again until the book release, but then a friend of Larissa's experienced a terrible tragedy - she lost her husband and the father of her children when he was hit by a car while running. When something like this happens to you, there is very little that anyone can do to assuage the pain and loss. Having lost my beloved younger brother Sam a little over five years ago, I understand this. But little gestures help more than anyone can know, and Larissa is offering her friend one such gesture by making the meathead patttern available to us before she publishes it in her book for a mere $4.50, with all proceeds to go to her friend and her children. Because I already have the pattern, I simply made a $4.50 contribution, and if you have $4.50 to spare, I would encourage you to do the same. You will gain a great pattern and the wonderful feeling that you have helped a family who desperately needs love and support right now.

As an additional incentive, I am going to sponsor five meatheads myself. All you have to do to participate in my meathead contest is leave me a comment with your real e-mail address below. (Feel free to put the words "NO SPAM" in it to deter spammers - I can take those out.) A week from today I will randomly choose five people from the comments to donate on behalf of and send a meathead pattern to. If you buy one independently as well, that's great, and I will instead make a $4.50 contribution to the fund in your name. But it isn't necessary. If you don't have the $4.50 to spare and want a shot at the pattern, I really truly want you to participate as well. The goal is to gather up as much support for this family as we can and then knit and wear our meatheads with pride.