This is Shadow doing what he does best. Now you see why he needs to cover up. Shadows Measurements:

1. HEAD-BUTT-17″`
2. NECK-BUTT-14″
3. NECK WIDTH-7 1/2″
4. TOP OF NECK IN FRONT-CHEST-4″
5. BODY WIDTH-11 1/2″-12″`
6. WEIGHT-5 LBS.4 OZ
7. DIAMETER OF NECK-8″
8. DIAMETER LOWER PORTION OF LEG-3″-3 1/2″

***OK HERE WE GO AGAIN***
“My Pussy Needs Some Hair” contest. ***(mohair that is)*** Actually any yarn will do. Remember it is going to be worn by animals so acrylic is most likely the best choice.
1. Calm down: ***The Pussy*** we’re referring too, is ***Shadow*** (my hairless cat). Scared ya, didn’t I.
2. All items that are knitted or crocheted will be donated to a local animal shelter after we pick the winner.
3. We are only going to have one winner this time.
4. The amount of yarn I send will depend on how many people sign up for the contest. The more entry’s the bigger the prize will be.
5. The winning yarn will start at **$100.00** worth of yarn.
6. Everyone will have to mail their entries to the address that will be posted at the end of the contest and the ***ADHD KNITTER*** staff will carefully pick out the **Best of the Best** outfit for Shadow.
7. Shadow will be trying on each and every entry that is sent and I will post a picture of all photos to our site.
8. So please add your name to this thread if you are going to participate in our latest upcoming contest.
9. Remember this is all in fun and never meant to offend anyone. I sometimes come off strong, but my heart is always in the right place.
10. Now start adding those names to this thread:
***” Because my Pussy Needs Some Hair”***
YOU HAVE THE ENTIRE MONTH OF JULY TO SIGN UP. AFTER SIGN UP’S, YOU WILL HAVE THE WHOLE MONTH OF AUGUST TO GET YOUR OUTFITS MADE AND SENT. STARTING TIME WILL BEGIN THE MOMENT YOU SIGN UP.  ALL THE MEASUREMENTS FOR “SHADOW” ARE POSTED ABOVE HIS PICTURE AS A GUIDE. REMEMBER THE MORE PEOPLE THAT SIGN UP TO THIS CONTEST THE BIGGER THE STASH WILL BE. SO TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW AND HAVE THEM JOIN IN ON THE FUN. REMEMBER ALL THE OUTFITS (ENTRYS) WILL BE DONATED FOR A GREAT CAUSE. MY LOCAL ANIMAL SHELTER. SO GET THOSE CREATIVE JUICES FLOWING,***and go from BALD to YARNED.***

Elizabeth (SquidWidget) with her bag “Barf Bag”!

Elizabeth took the spirit of the contest to heart and really went above and beyond to create a unique and one of a kind piece.

We loved her creative take on the original pattern. As a matter of fact, I was so inspired by her bag that I will be making one with similar design elements (the mouth!) to hold my sock yarn as well.

We hope your prize yarn will go towards many beautiful things for you and your beautiful family, especially considering if you looked anything like your bag during your pregnancy you deserve something beautiful!

Congratulations to Elizabeth.

Our 2nd Place winner is Tonks with her bag “George”.

This bag was modeled after designer Tonks ex boyfriend and the bird is named Puck. We were absolutely amazed with the detail on Puck and loved the extra kick the bird added to the piece.

We’re glad “George” is no longer in your life and even happier that Puck still is! Congratulations on your win, Tonks and we hope the yarn you get will be incorporated into your Knitted Wedding.

And our 3rd Place Winner is Aleta (RocketBride) with her bag “J. Harvey”

She got style points for actually having the inspiration hold the bag to take a picture. We just love the mildly amused yet obviously suspicious expression on Mr. Inspirations face.

Aleta also shared with us that she stuffed her honeymoon nightie and wedding band into the bag as well, which we thought was a nice touch. Being in the throes of a separation is hard, we’re glad that this contest offered a worthy diversion and ended on a happy note for you Aleta!

We want to thank (yet again.) everyone who entered the contest and everyone who voted. We’re hoping that the next contest we sponsor will go a little smoother, this was a learning experience for us and we’re glad everyone was understanding and patient with us while we worked the kinks out.

Stay tuned for pictures of the prize yarn before we ship it off to it’s new homes!

We closed the My Ex is Full of Knit contest last night and voting has officially begun in the forums. To share your two cents on who you think should win all that fabulous loot, click here!

We had some wonderful entries, and of course, nearly half of them came in the last 24 hours. Showing once again that knitters will absolutely wait until the last possible moment. I have a theory about this too, I’m guessing most of these have been almost done for a while but the knitter who was making it did one of a few things:

1. Did all the knitting and felting and stared at the blank face for a few days trying to decide the best possible way to decorate it.

2. Finished the whole thing in one big she-bang, but then wasn’t pleased with the results and fiddled and tweaked it until they ran out of time.

3. Waited until 11:30 p.m. Sunday night to even start it and then knitted on it until 4 a.m. and took a nap while it dried before doing the face while eating their breakfast before work on Monday.

Now, if it were me, I would have done option 3, because that’s the kind of person I am. My mother in law is the kind of knitter who would probably do the second option. Just goes to show, even among knitters it takes all kinds.

Speaking of taking all kinds, if you haven’t seen the Gallery yet you should definitely check out the great entries we got. We have quite the diverse crowd over there, we’ve got ex-husbands, ex-bosses, physical manifestations of things that make people miserable that people want to expel from their lives…everyone really took to the true spirit of the pattern and the contest. I am incredibly proud of every single entry that came in, they are all very thoughtful and brilliantly executed.

Voting runs through April 5th, and from there we’ll pick a winner out of the top 5 popular votes. You can expect a blog post early next week with the winner and the loot we’re sending out to them.

The ‘My Ex is Full of Knit’ contest that is.

We’ve gotten some great entries, but in true knitter fashion it appears that the bulk of people are waiting until the VERY last minute to finish (or in some cases, start) their Ex bags.

Be sure to check out the entries we have gotten so far that are in our gallery, and as they come in more will be added.

In case you’re new to the ADHD Knitting website and blog, the contest runs through midnight on March 31st which is next Monday. Voting will open shortly there after and run through April 5th. Voting is open to the public and will be conducted via a poll on our forums. The top 5 entries picked from the open voting will be the finalists, and the winners will be chosen by the ADHD Knitting staff. Winners will be notified by email and then posted on the blog!

This week we’re working on putting together the winning loot to be shipped out mid April to our winners. Prizes will be packages of yarn valued at $500, $300 and $200 respectively. The yarns will be yarn store quality (no cheap acrylic from us!) and will include brands like Crystal Palace, Rowan and Berroco, plus whatever else we have lying around the work space stash.

So my question today is this: for contests in the future is there anything other than yarn you’d like to see given away? Needles or sets of needles? Roving? A spinning wheel? (Okay, truthfully, if we end up being able to give away a spinning wheel it better be because Gail and I already have one and don’t need another one.) Knitting totes or other accessories? What else is of interest to knitters? Is there a particular author that you’d like to see books from in our giveaways? Gift certificates to yarn stores? I’m not making promises but we always want to know what our customers want/need.

I need more good quotes! Email me your quotes about mental illness, knitting, insomnia, mania, yarn, or anything loosely related to maxxnv@aol.com. If I use one of your entries you may win a little surprise from me! (Nothing like $500 worth of yarn, but I’ll do my best.)

Until next time, check us out on Ravelry.com too, at the ADHD Knitters group. There’s lots of chatting, advice and yarn licking going on over there and we’re up ’til the wee hours of the morning gabbing about all sorts of interesting things.

We’ve had some questions about a few things pertaining to the contest. I’m going to answer the most frequently asked questions here.

Can I submit more than one entry?

Yes! You can enter as many times as you like as long as you follow all the other applicable rules.

Can I do someone famous or a politician?

Sadly no, while you and I might find it amusing we do not want to open ourselves up to legal action or even to establish ourselves as being for and/or against a particular person. If you do one of a political or pop culture figure you can still send us the pictures and we may all get a chuckle out of it, but we unfortunately will not post them in our gallery or enter them into the contest.

Can I use a different yarn than the suggested yarn?

Absolutely! Just like any other knitting or crochet pattern, our suggested yarn is just that: a suggestion. We have found that the Crystal Palace Fjord yarn gives us the results we were looking for and that they have great skin and hair color color ways in their selection. However you can feel free to use whatever yarn you have available to you that will come up with a similar result. We also suggest using Cascade 220, Lambs Pride Worsted or Berroco Peruvia. Each of those yarns also felt beautifully and result in a dense and sturdy fabric. If you find a yarn that works well please just let us know so we can add it to our list of yarns that work for the pattern!

What’s with all the anger? I’m a peaceful person and don’t like the idea of so much bad juju in my knitting.

We respect and acknowledge that this contest, and indeed this pattern may not be for everyone. We hope that if this isn’t up your alley that you will respect that other people may find this contest and pattern fun, interesting and even maybe a little cathartic. We at ADHD Knitting like to laugh instead of cry and we viewed this project and this pattern as a way of reclaiming a situation that may have been hurtful or upsetting. We like to think of knitting as therapy and this is a special kind of therapy. If this isn’t your cup of tea we understand and we hope that you will participate in our upcoming contests. We have pretty short attention spans and once this contest is over we will happily move on to the next one. We promise the next one will be nicer.

I hope this answers some of the more popular questions about our contest. We are still working on getting our gallery put together and we will be able to post the submissions in the next week or two.

We also need your help! Please tell your knitting groups, your LYS, your friends online, your blog readers, etc. about this contest. The only way we can continue contests of this nature is with the continued support of people like you! It’s free, you don’t have to buy anything to participate. We offer the pattern for free and all we ask is that you have fun with it and tell other people about it.

Below is a badge that you can feel free to add to your blog to show other people about our contest. Simply add it and have it link back to our blog (www.adhdknitting.com/blog) and you can help ensure that we will have more contests in the future.

As always feel free to email us if you have any other questions about our site or the contest.

Happy knitting guys!

We have worked diligently to be able to offer a crocheted version of the ‘My Ex’ pattern so that we could include crocheters in the ‘My Ex is Full of Knit’ contest.

So here it is: My Ex - Crocheted!

This pattern will also be available for free for the duration of the contest through the end of March and then we will have it for sale in our store.

We have received our first submission for the contest as well, so we will begin posting the pictures shortly. We’re very excited that this is taking off. Be sure to get your copy of the pattern and get knitting/crocheting so you can enter too!

We will also be working on converting some of our other patterns into crochet as well so that we can offer a wider variety of things for every possible kind of crafter.

After careful consideration we decided it was probably not a good idea to allow submissions of famous people or their likeness into the contest. This will keep all of us from potentially having an uncomfortable situation involving said famous person or their lawyers. I’m sure everyone can find someone somewhere in their own personal past to recreate for this purpose.

I can think of several celebrity figures I would love to render in yarn and then methodically drive my super sharp sock needles through their eyes as a form of fiber voodoo, sadly however, it’s probably not a good idea to put that on the Internet for the world to see. So, should you decide to use the My Ex pattern to exact a celebrity revenge scheme please just keep it to yourself.

Actually, you can still send us a picture, we’d all get a chuckle out of it, we just can’t enter it into the contest. Sorry!

On to other news!

We will be releasing a crochet version of the My Ex pattern in the next day or two, so for any of you that want to hook your way to the fabulous prize yarn, you’ll be able to play along too! Look for it in our free pattern section and on our blog.

We will be putting up new photos in our gallery over the next few days. More things that will eventually become ADHD patterns as well as some fun things from around Gail’s house and the ADHD Knitting workshop.

More fun things coming soon!

It’s time guys! Here is the official low down on the ADHD ‘My Ex is Full of Knit’ Contest Extravaganza.

We are asking you to knit up our ‘My Ex’ pattern in the likeness of whoever you don’t like. It can be your ex husband, your ex boss, your ex best friend, or your ex mother in law. (It can be your current mother in law for all we care actually…) When you have finished knitting the bag to look like whoever it is you’re not a fan of, then you send us in a picture of your finished bag and a little paragraph about the person you modeled it after and why you chose them. You can also send us a reference photo of the person you modeled it after if you’d like, but this is not required.

The ‘My Ex’ pattern is now available for free here. It will remain in the free section through the end of March, so get it now while it’s not only free but could win you some free yarn!

Here’s the trick; make this bag look as much like the person you are modeling it after as possible. If they have a particular hairstyle then try to mimic that in yarn, do they have facial piercing’s? Tattoos? Do they wear glasses? An eye patch? Figure out how to knit it. We give you the basic bag pattern but it’s up to you to embellish it to make it as creepy and/or realistic as possible.

Special points will be given to anyone who goes above and beyond the basic pattern. We want to see bling! We want style! Panache! Do it up and do it up big. We want to see everything from gold fillings to freckles.

Once you have knit up your Ex email as many photos as you like (we may only post one or we may post them all if they’re interesting enough) along with your story about why you chose the person you did. Email entries to maxxnv@aol.comwith the subject ‘My Ex is Full of Knit Contest’ in the subject line. In order to submit an entry you must be registered on our site, registration is free and gives you access to our forums as well. You can register here. Once you are registered be sure to include whatever name you choose as your username for the site.

We are currently working on developing a special gallery on the website for the photos so in a week or two we will begin adding the submissions to that gallery and they will be available for viewing and voting. You will be able to vote once a day for your favorite entry. Feel free to launch a campaign on your own blogs and Ravelry pages to get as many people as possible to vote for your entry, the more people who come and participate the more fun this will be.

Entries will be accepted starting immediately through midnight on March 31st 2008. As soon as we begin receiving entries we will post them on the gallery page through out the month so that you can watch the progression of the contest. Entries submitted after March 31st will be ineligible for voting and will not be considered for our prizes. Voting will continue through April 5th. On April 5th the staff of ADHD Knitting will take the top 5 entries (determined by the number of peer votes they receive) and pick our 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners from those 5 entries. Winners will be notified no later than April 10th 2008 and prizes will be mailed by April 30th 2008.

First place winner will receive a selection of yarn valued at $500 and bragging rights. (Also they’ll be featured on our website’s main page.)

Second place will win a selection of yarn valued at $300 and third place will win a selection of yarn valued at $200.

We do not believe in yucky acrylic yarn, so the yarn the winners will receive will be a selection of yarns from brands such as Berroco, Rowan and Crystal Palace.

Now, go spread the word! Tell your friends! Tell your knitting group! Tell your LYS!

More details on how to view the entries and how to vote on your favorite will be posted here in the blog and on our forum in the coming weeks.

See below for the ‘Lawyer Version’ of our contest rules. I can’t wait to see everyone’s entries! We’ll be posting our own little versions in the coming days too, to keep you inspired.

“CONTEST RULES”

1. Download the “My Ex” pattern from the ADHD Knitting website and create your own “My Ex” from the pattern.
2. Email photos of your “My Ex” to ADHD Knitting. All photos must be received at ADHD Knitting by March 31, 2008 at 11:59 PM. All entries must include an email address so that winners can be notified.
3. All contest photos will be posted on the ADHD Knitting website between April 1 and April 5, 2008. Cast your votes by sending an email to ADHD Knitting! All votes must be received by April 5, 2008 at 11:59 PM.
4. ADHD Knitting will select First, Second and Third place winners based on votes and judging by Gail and staff.
5. Winners will be notified by email by April 10, 2008. Winners must provide a shipping address for prizes.
6. First place winner will receive $500 in yarn products (retail value), Second place winner will receive $300 in yarn products (retail value), Third place winner will receive $200 in yarn products (retail value). Prizes will be sent by ADHD Knitting not later than April 30, 2008.
7. All photographs submitted may be used by ADHD Knitting in future marketing materials.
8. Employees of ADHD Knitting and members of Sin City Knits are not eligible.