iMake
First off, I won an amazing box of goodies from the iMake blog. I have done some needle-felting and it's great fun, but I've not ever really been taught any techniques. The book, I Felt Awesome: Tips and Tricks for 35 Needle-Poked Projects
has been really helpful in giving me more ideas about what I could do with the craft.
I've had a bit of a play with some stuff and I'm working on creating a set of felt pattern weights, as I am definitely in need of a set.
All the fibre is pretty amazing too. I have all I could possibly need for quite some time! Thank you Moxie for the wonderful stuff!
True Brit Knits
An online crafting friend JenACKnitwear had a contest to win Knitting Masterclass: with Over 20 Technical Workshops and 15 Beautiful Patterns
. Her lovely Golden Wheat Shawl was on the cover. She also shared another place to win the book, so I entered on True Brit Knits, which was a blog new to me. 
I won the book on True Brit Knits and found a lovely new blog to read at the same time. Belinda Boaden, one of the blog's writers, wrote one of the first patterns I ever really lusted over in a UK magazine, The Ripple Cardigan from The Knitter, Issue 3. It was a pattern I aspired to being able to do and I know I would be able to do it now, but I've an awful feeling the yarn has been discontinued!
The book is great with lots of incredibly useful tutorials, along with patterns that illustrate the use of the skills being discussed. It's a lovely thing as well. It's beautifully photographed and put together. It's a book I would recommend.
Faithfully Geeky
One of the blogs I've read for a long time, Faithfully Geeky had a contest to win Drizzle, a pattern by Mel from Single Handed Knits. She then did a videocast, which I watched and found out I was a winner of this particular contest.
Single Handed Knits is one of the podcasts that I have started listening too recently. Mel is a lovely person and lived on an island off Hawaii. She often records on the beach, so the views alone make the podcast well worth a watch. I'd seen Mel talk about her hat pattern when it was launched and I'd also seen other podcasters knit the pattern and really liked the way it looks. I always intended to buy the hat pattern because, as you know, I'm a sucker for a good hat.
Made in Home
Nat, from Made in Home is another of my favourite bloggers. She had a contest recently to win a hat pattern too! Again it was a hat pattern I knew about and hat intended to buy. Once again, I was saved some cash by winning the giveaway. The hat pattern is Skeppe and is the first pattern released by another favourite blogger Truly Myrtle. It's a lovely and interesting pattern and a great launch into pattern design.
I hope you check out some of the links in this post because there are some lovely blogs/podcasts mentioned here, and some great patterns.
