Innocent Little Hats

Sometimes a good blog post just kinda falls into your lap (figuratively speaking) over a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and a good cup of half-caf Starbucks coffee (that last part is much less figurative).

Anyway about a week and a half ago I joined Ravelry.com, an awesome online networking site dedicated to knitters and crocheters and otherwise fiber-crazed people. It's a great site, and as well as connecting its users to one another, it's also a great tool for keeping track of what, for many of us, is a quite complex web of yarn and patterns and needles and projects. Everything is connected to wikis, and the site makes it really easy to, say, look at a pattern and see what yarn other users have used for the same project. Then you can see pictures of how that project turned out in the alternative yarn. This is particularly helpful to me.

The search function is also great, because you can say, "I remember seeing these awesome knitted cupcakes in XYZ store. I wonder if I can make them." Then you just search for "cupcake" and you get this. (I realize that you might not be able to see these links if you're not a Ravelry user, but just trust me, it's cool.)

Anyway, I was reading the user-created Ravelrly weekly newsletter this morning and found out about the Big Knit campaign by Innocent Drinks, who make the best bottles juices and smoothies in all of England. I miss them like crazy, and I miss their labels which said things in the ingredients list like the number of cranberries used and that there was a big woolly jumper (think: sweater) in the juice bottle. Ha.

So every year Innocent sponsors a hat drive, and everyone knits tiny little hats that fit on the smoothie bottles. Innocent sells the bottles in Sainsbury's and donates 50p for each hatted smoothie to a charity, this year it's Age Concern.

It's a funny little idea, but totally cute. So check it out:


thebigknit2008

In other news, I went to a Cookout for Change yesterday, sponsored by the Obama campaign. It was crazy hot outside (for September in the mountains, what gives?) but there was free food and free beer and general coolness.

We also booked our wedding photographer, which was a really exciting step. You can see her photo blog here. She was referred to us by one of our friends who used to work for her, and I'm so psyched about our coming engagement shoot and having her shoot our wedding. Her work is gorgeous and so are the albums she puts together and sells.

Last weekend we went to Charlotte to take care of some wedding plans, and we got SO much done: wedding dress picked out; bridesmaid dress picked out; invitation design initiated; dishes chosen; guest list discussed; centerpieces rehearsed and approved; and photographers narrowed down (and then chosen on Wednesday). As much as I really want to show you pictures of the things we chose, that would be cheating and I want everyone to be surprised at the event. I'm getting more excited every day.