Supporting Independent Artists

The Winter 2007 Happily Handmade giveaway will begin accepting entries on February 12th. You can only enter the giveaway through the fabulous Independent Artist sponsors. This [tag]giveaway[/tag] is sponsored by a group of [tag]independent artists[/tag] who are promoting their shops with this giveaway.

2/12â€“3/31: Winter 2007 Giveaway entry period
4/2: Winter 2007 Winners announced!

History of the Giveaway

-Quoted from the website â€“â€œThe idea behind the [tag]Happily Handmade Giveaway[/tag] began in the Spring of 2004 from a brainstorming session among a handful of indie artists. Each time we organize this event, it grows larger and more successful. During an event, our participating Indie Shops will create a sign-up form on their respective websites where you may enter the our participating Indie Shops will create a sign-up form on their respective websites where you may enter the Happily Handmade Giveaway drawing to win one of these fabulous gift boxes.

You may enter the drawing by visiting one, two, or ALL of the Indie Shop Sponsors. Feel free to enter through all of the Indie Shop Sponsors for more chances to win! Items included in these wonderful gift boxes may vary from clothing and handbags to bath & beauty products and jewelry. While you are visiting our Indie Shop Sponsors, please take a peek at what each talented artist has to offer. You’ll be glad you didâ€.

The Rules are simple, visit the sites, you may enter the giveaway through each individual Indie Shop Sponsor page. Each sponsor will have their own requirements for entry. It is your duty to complete these requirements as instructed. Please read all the rules on the rules page for more information.

Please help support these wonderful independent artists and you just might win a nice gift!

Whether because of Mother’s Day coming up or wishing spring flowers would arrive a little faster, now is a great time to knit yourself some flowers that won’t wilt. I’ve shared some flower knitting patterns before but I think these are all new ones that you can add to your collection!

These pretty little flowers from Fitting in Knitting on Etsy are great because you can customize them in lots of different ways. Change up the color, of course, but you can also make them with or without stems and leaves depending on how you want to use the. You can also make the center of the flower a contrasting color or not as you like. They use DK weight yarn and the flower itself is 6.5 cm/2.5 inches across.

Tina Vejlø Andersen’s lotus flowers (available on Ravelry) are so pretty and delicate. I love them in the purples shown in the sample but think they’d be lovely in any pastel colors. The petals are knit separately and sewn together, and knit stamens are also added. You can work the petals in three different shades or make it a single color. There are instructions for knitting a stem as well. The pattern uses fingering weight yarn and is available in Danish and English.

For a very different look, try the Puffy Petal flowers, free on Ravelry from designer Hanxiao Zhou. These are cute as purse accessories or backpack charms, and though the pattern calls for worsted/aran weight yarn you can use different weights to make flowers of different sizes.

Or you can make a cute floral bookmark from this design by JaNae Yagi. The flower is knit separately from the stem, which is made out of I-cord and includes a leaf at the end. The pattern notes on Ravelry say the yarn choice depends on your gauge, but finer yarns would be best for using as a bookmark.

If you want to try your hand at translating Norwegian, the Strikkeroser flower from Helene Rønquist Knutsen is really pretty collection of three roses the designer describes as having three different levels of difficulty, though they are all pretty easy. The pattern calls for fingering weight yarn and is free (though, again, only in Norwegian, but Google Translate did a good job with the pattern page) on Ravelry.

Have you read?

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