Jazz Hands!....Who Wants 'Em?

So earlier this week, I was in the middle of Pattern Editing Purgatory.  I love designing, I love knitting, I don't even mind the pattern writing, but when it comes to grading for different sizes and editing the pattern....well, it's not my favorite way to spend 40 hours.

Anyway, I had graded and edited for like 8 hours that day and I needed to knit something to regain my sanity.  Problem was, I actually didn't have any projects in progress (!)  So I went for a dig and found this:

I caked it up and decided on fun "arm warmers".

Of course, as these things always go, the arm warmers morphed into "long-sleeved fingerless gloves" by the time I was done.  But they're shortie gloves, only covering the palm of the hand.  I plan to wear them in my freezing cold family room this winter when I'm sitting still knitting and wishing my husband would let me turn the heat up to 75 degrees.  (He won't.  It's a compromise.....I don't let him turn the air conditioning on in the summer until it's like 90 degrees in the house, and he doesn't let me turn the heat above 72 in the winter - which probably sounds really warm, but when your house is old and void of any insulation in the walls, it's not. :)

But, I digress.  Here are the Jazz Hands!

You like?  Yay!  Then, I have a little proposition for you.

I have finished my pattern for Jazz Hands, and I have finished knitting my own pair.  I made them out of the super-fun Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn that basically looks like someone managed to spin an entire box of crayons into yarn.

But here's my dilemma.  My Jazz Hands are so very colorful that you can barely even make out the texture pattern in them.  And they've got a cool "lightning bolt" thing going on, and who wouldn't want to show that off, right?

I need some help.

I'd love to knit a second pair of these for myself.  I've got the perfect yarn for it:

It's "Frog or Not" Sock Yarn by a dyer who is local to me: Munchkin Knitworks.  This yarn is split in half, then held double before it is knit into a stockinette scarf and dyed.  The result is two skeins that match exactly with long, graduated color.  This skein goes from light green to darker green into aqua blue and finally a deep blue.  I have frogged the scarf and skeined the yarn up for this picture, but I'm happy to wind it into 2 cakes before I mail it if you prefer it that way.

As much as I love the colors in this yarn, and as fun as it would be to own 2 pairs of Jazz Hands(!),  I thought it would be fun to give someone else a chance (and it would take care of the test knitting, so two birds with one stone, right?)  Anyway, I came up with this give-away/test-knitter idea.  I'll put up the yarn and the pattern and mail it to someone who wants to make these for herself or to give to a friend.  (Christmas is coming, people!)  My best guess is that this is a 15-20 hour project.  I think it took me around 12 hours, but I was already familiar with the twisted stitches and I already swatched with this yarn a while back so I knew what to expect.

Anyway, the winning knitter needs to knit these puppies up before Thanksgiving, then pop them in the mail (I'll include a self-addresses stamped envelope in the package with your yarn) and send them to me.  I'm going to use your beautiful Jazz Hands(!) to use in the sample photos for the pattern because I think this yarn will show off the texture much better, while still being fun and colorful.  Once I'm done with the pictures (it won't take me more than a week), I send them back to you and you have them in plenty of time for Christmas, or to keep for ever more!

How does that sound?

If you are interested, I only have two conditions of entering this contest:   First, you have to have at least 3 projects posted somewhere on the internet that I can look at and see that you are indeed capable of knitting up a pair of Jazz Hands that I can use in sample photographs.  If you're a Ravelry member, just leave your ID in the comments section so I can look you up.  If you have projects on a blog or a Flickr or other photo stream account, leave the address when you fill out the comment form.  If you're feeling shy about leaving that stuff in the comment box, you can e-mail it to me (click on the "contact" tab for my e-mail link).  Just make sure you tell me in the e-mail what name you commented under so I can figure out who is who!
Second condition: (and I hate this, but for this particular thing, the time it would take for international shipping would be prohibitive) so I'm going to have to limit this to people in the US.  I'll do another straight-up giveaway before the end of the year though, and I promise that one will be open to everyone that lives on planet Earth.

To throw your name in the ring, just leave a comment after this post.  You can just say "hi", you can tell me where you're from, you can tell me how you came across my blog, or you can tell me which of my patterns you've enjoyed knitting.  Any comment will get you entered!  (And if you don't want to win the yarn & pattern, please don't comment under this post.  You can always comment on a previous post if you have something you want to add without actually volunteering for this project.)

I'll leave this open until next Thursday, October 25, and then I'll do a random number generator to pick the winner.  I'll announce the winner here and on my Facebook business page.  (It's right here, just in case you're not following me there yet.)   The winner has until the following Monday, October 29 to contact me with her mailing address so I can send her package.