Woohoo! The winners of the Girly Knits September photo contest have been chosen! 25 photos were entered by awesome knitters from around the world, and 5 Girly Knits fans helped judged! Thanks to all of the talented knitters who entered, and the knitters who volunteered their time to judge the photos! You are awesome and totally inspire me 🙂 🙂
It was honestly really tough to choose the top 3, more than half of the photos were chosen as the judges top 5 favorites! The photos were all so great and a lot of fun, but I had to choose winners for the prizes, so here they are!
I was also fortunate to be able to get in touch with the top entrants for back stories behind their photos, I hope you enjoy them! They all illustrate what knitting is about for a lot of us – sharing, love, and family. Awwww 🙂
First Place
“3 Little Owls”
Janet from Fairbanks, Alaska is the proud Grandmother of the 3 adorable children in this photo that she knitted owl hats for. She started with knitting the pink owl hat for Emma for her birthday, then went on to make them for her brothers.
“I like making my Grandkids stuff. My Daughter-in-law saw some owl hats at the fair this summer. She said you could make one of those, so I started looking for an owl hat pattern. I came across yours and showed it to her and she liked it too. The colors were her idea. As you can tell the Baby wasn’t very happy, and that’s my Sons arm you see putting the binky in his mouth. I have 4 Grandkids and I’m always knitting for them. I usually knit for my youngest Granddaughter, but trying to knit for the other 3 now. I’m a Widow so have a lot of knitting time, and it’s how I unwind after work.”
Janet won all of the materials to make the Lion Brand Norwegian Wristers, an online learning class from Craftsy, a $25 gift certificate to her favorite yarn store (Inua Wool Shoppe), and a $25 gift certificate to spend on Girly Knits patterns! Congratulations Janet!
Second Place
“Wise Old Granny Owl”
This photo was submitted by Sarah from Birmingham, England (left), who made this owl hat for her Grandmother to wear to her Garden Party themed baby shower.
“The photo is of my brother, my gran and myself. My friend organised the baby shower and demanded it be fancy dress, I said I wanted to be a bumble bee to utilise my pregnant belly and the garden theme was chosen. My gran has had several strokes over the last four years and moved in with the family so we could look after her. Last year she had a really big one and is now unfortunately in a nursing home. She cannot talk but she understands everything people say to her, and still gives us attitude through the faces she pulls. She loves being involved and your hat pattern was the perfect intermediate for her to have a costume (wise old owl) that she could keep and use again. She thought it was funny when I showed her a mirror. It gives people who see her (nurses etc) a fun topic to talk about when she wears it again in the winter, rather than just commenting on the weather :)”
Sarah won an online learning from Craftsy, an issue of her favorite knitting magazine (tbd), and a $15 gift certificate to spend on Girly Knits patterns! Nice work Sarah and congratulations on the new baby! Baby Ralph was born just last week!
Third Place
There was a tie for 3rd place! Both Kelly and Anya were winners of the Third place slot!
“Love Birds”
This clever photo was submitted by Kelly, who currently resides in Minneapolis. She had her 15 year old son help her take the photos.
“My son, Nick, who loves photography took the photo and I promised the share the prize with him if we won. He was really excited…..of course, I waited until after he took the photos to tell him the prizes were knitting stuff!!! LOL, sometimes with a teenager a little trickery is needed to get them to do something nice for Mom! Nevertheless, it was fun to combine our two hobbies and I think the prestige of winning a contest will be reward enough. Besides, maybe I’ll knit him a pair of mittens next….maybe.
Taking photos was a really fun way to spend some time with Nick! *whisper* I also didn’t tell Nick that the contest was with Girly Knits, so I don’t think he’ll be telling his friends about it! Hehehe.”
“Warming up for Knitting is a Workout!”
Anya from Denver, CO shared a very fun and creative photo of all of the prep work that goes into knitting a new pattern!
“My inspiration came while I was prepping my yarn to do a gauge swatch before I even started your pattern. I set up my winder and swift and my husband saw it and thought it was cool/weird/old-fashioned, and he seemed impressed, so I thought I would take a prep picture, since not everyone uses or has seen this equipment before (I was guessing).
I took the picture with my camera on the tripod with the timer. My husband was sitting right next to me on the couch like a foot away…I had to angle the tripod so he wouldn’t show… he was watching Sunday football and would NOT move for me to take a pic (we alway swatch football on Sundays. I mean he watches, and I knit). At first I tried taking the picture and smiling but that was too boring (and I was embarrassed to do something dorky in front of him, because he would know it was posed). Then I tried this sweaty-breathing-hard-pose and he totally laughed at me right when I took it and asked “are you trying to look like you’re working hard?” [That is why my eyes are turned to the side- I was looking at the camera before he made fun of me!] But then he said the picture was good and I was going to win the contest! Guess he was right :)”
Kelly and Anya both won a $15 gift certificate to spend on Girly Knits patterns! Great photos!
Honorary Mentions
Since there were so many great entries that deserve to be awarded, here are some extra special entries that deserve to be winners too 🙂 All will get a free Girly Knits pattern of their choice!
“Most Facebook Fan Votes”
Caitlin’s photo had a whopping 27 likes and 19 comments! Go Caitlin!
“Best Fall Themed Photo”
Love this picture of the mittens and the scarecrow! So creative! Great job Kelly!
“Knittin’ Pretty Award”
Ursula from Germany submitted such a beautiful photo of herself knitting! It’s truly stunning and felt is deserved to awarded for its quality.
“Best ‘Friends Forever’ Photo”
“My friend Kaylee moved to Camrose AB for the summer and I had crocheted her a blanket, and wanted something to use to keep it rolled up in gift form, but was still functional afterwards and I saw mine that I’d made last year and thought that it was perfect. Turned out the blanket was bigger than the headband would stretch, but I ended up taking them over and she loved them. Her roommate Deanna wants one as well! She moved back to Woodstock last weekend, and so there’s a bow in Alberta, and a bow in Ontario! I’m going to make Deanna one next and send it out to her for Christmas :)”
Fun photo Coreen! Another fan favorite!
“Knittin’ Kitten Cover Girl”
Special thanks to Jessica for being the very first knitter to enter the contest, and for letting me use her fantastic smile to spread word about the contest! In case you haven’t seen her awesome knitting skills, I did a whole post on her talent here 🙂
And lastly, as promised, the three entrants who will win a copy of “Smitten Mittens” or a Girly Knits pattern of their choice are Claudia, Barbara, and Debby! Congratulations everyone and thanks again for participating! It was a lot of fun and I look forward to doing more contests in the future!
♥Lauren
Have you encountered problems with knitting thumbs while knitting gloves or mittens? In today’s video tutorial, I’m going to go through the steps of knitting a thumb! These technique will apply to both fingerless and full coverage thumbs. From placing the thumb stitches on a holder, to casting on stitches for the fourchette, then coming back to pick up stitches for the thumb and knitting it in the round, I’ll be covering all of the important and sometimes tricky steps. Please do keep in mind that these are the techniques I use in my Girly Knits patterns, and not all thumbs will be constructed exactly the same with patterns from other designers. If you have a glove or mitten pattern from me however, these techniques will apply! I hope you find this video helpful, and that you have fun knitting your gloves and mittens!
When I was thinking up design ideas for my Valentine’s Day inspired collection of knitting patterns 
I am so super excited to share my brand new collection of knitting patterns with you, “Follow Your Heart”! It is a collection of 7 lovely knitting patterns inspired by Valentine’s Day and all of the fun girly goodies that come along with it! The collection includes gloves with flirty valentine’s messages, a skirt and legwarmer set featuring a heart cable pattern, playful and romantic reversible eye masks, a cupcake inspired hat and mitten set, and more! Check out the video of me below doing a show and tell of the collection, and telling a little more about each piece! A fun thing I also did with the collection was to include girls sizes in the patterns, yay!
Another fun thing I wanted to do was to send you a Girly Knits Valentine! Just email me your address to 
