It’s time for the FIRST EVER REAL OMG TOTALLY contest here on evilsciencechick!!! I know you are all excited. I know some of you have the impression that I am WILDLY POPULAR on the blogosphere, but really, I am not. I get a decent hit, but not enough to even think about ad revenue, or anything like that. However, I DO love supporting my friends, and will so whenever I can. You can see over on the sidebar -> that I have some custom buttons up to support some of my friends on the internets. I don’t receive any money for them, or any gifts (though, you know…I wouldn’t turn down a drink…). It’s tough out here on the internet, especially in this economy, and I like to help my friends out 
ANYWAY, the other night at knit night I was chatting with my friend Andrea, who is just the SWEETEST person you ever met. Seriously. You will try to hate her, because she is thin and gorgeous and hasn’t been knitting that long but has already made a bunch of sweaters and beautiful stuff. But there is NO way you can hate her, because she is sweet and friendly and HILARIOUS. Seriously. If you meet her, try to hate her. You can’t. IMPOSSIBLE TO DO.
So anyway, I was talking to Andrea about my blog, and about her etsy shop and how cute her stuff is, and she asked me if I would like to do a contest on my blog with something from her shop as a prize. Would I??? YES!!! Her stuff is AWESOME, because in addition to being thin and beautiful and knitterly, she is also a crafty and stitchy genius.
And while a lot of her stuff is geared towards the fiberly folk, she makes stuff for the non-knitters, too. Those tins are adorable and very handy. I have one and keep my pharmaceuticals in it (asprin, alleve, benedryl). But you can use them to hold gift cards, a sewing kit, extra buttons, spare change at your desk, WHATEVER. Very handy.
The prize for this contest is geared for the knitter/crocheter, however if you don’t knit or crochet, maybe there is someone in your life who does and would appreciate a nice gift? Or maybe you sit this one out and wait until a naughty toy shop wants to have a contest on my blog 
So what’s the prize? A gorgeous project bag!!!!
Isn’t it beautiful? Geared toward projects larger than socks, you can carry around your scarf, sweater piece, lace, OR whatthehell, socks, SECURELY with this adorable bag. It cinches closed using the pulls at the side and you can carry it over your wrist.
To enter, all you have to do is go to Andrea’s etsy site(also linked on my sidebar), look around, and then leave a comment on this post about your favorite item AND also I want to hear about your best/worst/most hilarious internet purchases. At the end of the contest, I’ll pick a winner at random somehow, and that person will get the bag!
You’ll have two weeks to comment, and I’ll put up a BIG FANCY BUTTON on my sidebar to link to this post so it doesn’t get lost in a FLURRY OF FANTASTIC POSTS between now and then (snort). Tell you friends! Tell your family! Tell your neighbor! Tell that creepy guy who stares at you on the bus! OK, don’t tell him. But tell everyone else. You have two weeks! Now….GO!
ESC
Sandy
Imbrium
First?
I know this shop! I followed an ad from Ravelry, I believe. Right there up top, the pattern bag with the birdies on it: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=21549186 LOVE!!!
Not only did I look around, but I bought my favourite item…the butterfly stitch markers. Gorgeous!
My most ridiculous online purchase was a couple of Christmases ago. My son was really into The Justice League and we were having a hard time filling out his action figure collection, especially with the female characters.
We finally found Wonder Woman, Hawk Girl and Martian Manhunter on ebay…being sold as collector’s items. We ended up paying close to $90 for 3 $8 action figures. I’m pretty sure if the guy who sold them to us, who had them listed as “mint” and “never opened”, knew that they went to an 7 year old boy who immediately engaged them in battle with the rest of the League he might not have sold them to us.
That $90 was so worth it though…the look on his face was awesome.
um…holy moly those stitch markers are PERFECT FOR ME!! I MIGHT JUST BUY THEM WHEN I GET PAID MONDAY!! WHY AM I “SHOUTING”? CUZ THAT’S HOW I TALK!! not really. I love you, ESC.
OMG, I can’t decide between the Numbers tin and the Flowers stitch markers/pattern keeper combo. I lovelovelove tins, and I NEED a couple of pattern keepers. It’s really cool that she makes combo sets. Hmmmm….
Re internet purchases: back when I was buying bows and arrows, I bought one fiberglass bow off eBay. The bow came and it was packed better than any other bow I bought. I was impressed! It was zip-tied to a piece of wood, with holes drilled for the ties and everything.
Only problem was, the bow was crap. It was split and oogy and there’s no way I would have strung it up at full weight and fired it. But I hadn’t paid much for it, so I just tossed the bow and kept the board.
Later, I used that same board to stretch, scrape, and dry a rattlesnake skin that I’d been given. Srsly.
The “Live, Laugh, Love” stitch markers rock!!
Best purchase was one Christmas I bought a Palm E2 for myself. I waved it under Dan’s nose, knowing he wanted one too. I lasted for about 3 days before I pulled his out – I’d actually bought 2, one for each of us.
Andrea’s stuff is awesome! I have been lucky enough to see her and her work in person and I can tell you she never does anything sloppy or uses cheep materials. High quality and high all the way. She also has a really giving spirit. She has offered to help beginning knitters and has told me on multiple occasions that my sewing machine is not nearly as scary as I think it is.
I refuses to right about an online shopping experience right now because it is 7:30 and I can’t think of a funny story.
Man I want that bird bag.
Cute stuff on her etsy site! I love the pattern keepers – so handy!
Weirdest internet purchase??? Hmmmmm…..I don’t know – it seems like we buy everything on the internet! But ummmm we have bought some uh…..adult type items that I prayed would not be accidentally delivered to someone else’s house!
Oh I love the pattern keepers! What a clever idea. And beautiful colors as well.
I don’t really have a most embarassing internet purchase moment. But I do have a worst/best. This past Christmas, my husband ordered about 90% of my presents from one website and had them delivered to our apartment. And they were stolen! Right from our doorstep! At Christmas! What kind of heartless person does that? It’s not like we live in a bad neighborhood. This is the only time something like this has ever happened. My husband was devestated because we couldn’t afford to replace the items. It didn’t bother me so much because I didn’t know what they were in the first place, I was mostly upset about being robbed on our doorstep.
It turned out to be the best experience in the end because my husband contacted the website and told them what happened and they replaced our items! How awesome is that?!
Well, my favorite on her site would be the pattern keepers I just BOUGHT right now as soon as I saw them…
My winningest online purchase was back shortly after LOTR came out – hubby and I were way into it. Anyway, I was on their online store, and saw these little boxes that had the characters on top of them. There were 6 different ones, for about $20 each. Then I saw the full set of six, listed for… $20. Someone screwed up and put the price in wrong. I POUNCED on it, and got the full set for the price of one. I was fairly proud of myself.
And yes, I know that story proves my massive geekitude, but I’m ok with that.
(And I still blame you for sucking me into Twitter.)
I liked the tins. If you knew how many things I have in altoid tins.
A few weeks ago, I bought a nabazatag, which is a wifi rabbit, that is supposed to do tai chi with it’s ears, will sniff rfid tag, and will talk to you when you get email etc. It sounds really cool. I have wanted one for years. I get it, and it doesn’t turn on. I have such bad service from the company, that I want my money refunded. They won’t because it’s not in a 7 day window, which they drug their feet on (seriously 3 days to get to a ‘real’ person). I finally have started disputing the charge through my credit card company.
I love the medium project bags. The colors of the fabric are fantastic.
Just before Valentines day I saw a link to an etsy store that sells pasties and let my husband pick some out for his Valentine present. The same day I got a cone from Amazon with a gift certificate that was a present from my father in law… Next week at knitting night I walked in to inquisitive stares about how well they both worked.
I love all the project bags. I’m a sucker for project bags. The pattern keeper is also a very clever idea. I use my old cross stitch pattern board for that purpose if I need to, since I don’t do cross stich any more. More often I just fumble and curse at the printouts flying every which way.
My worst internet purchase was a couple of weeks ago when I made the mistake of ordering a phone from sprint’s website. It turned out to be the original blackberry phone, six years old, older than the one I was “upgrading”, bigger than a brick and twice as ugly. Useless as well-did not work and had no web browser and no way to send text. I ask you, what use is a blacberry phone with no web browser? Plus they “upgraded” me to a more expensive plan I did not want though the chat rep claimed I needed it. Vindication came soon, though, because I took the phone back to the sprint store and a wonderful young man named Andrew was my knight in shining armor. He cured all my phone-related woes in less than an hour and I now have a much better cell phone and the unneeded “upgrade” has been removed. Bliss!
tl; dr. I has it.
I love the live-laugh-love stitchmarkers.
Worse internet purchase…I do airbrush tattoos…so I was buying a 8 colour changer setup with compressor, off ebay. The product…fine. The ebay reseller who realised he didn’t know what the blue blazes he had listed and that it was going to cost 125.00 more in shipping than he thought so he tried to jack me around? Not cool.
I love the pattern keepers! I need those when we get paid!
Let’s see weirdest and most ridiculous internet purchase would be when my husband decided he HAD to have an authentic Freddie Kreuger stunt mask from the first movie. It was more money than I want to admit and has been a thorn in my side every Halloween since!
Hey… Her stitch markers would be perfect for my yarns. Is she on Ravelry?
Can’t believe you get to hear me admit loving something so girly and pretty, but those pink ‘scribbles’ pattern keepers are so sweet. This is huge from the most non-girly person ever.
The most awful thing ever I bought on the internet was an ebay yarn purchase. Looked like nice green yarn in a color I wanted/needed. It was – all in hundreds of 3 foot lengths. gargh..
Finishing up…
My bestest and weirdest internet purchase was my full-size medical reproduction skeleton, Fred. He’s heavy and if he didn’t have a screw coming out of the top of his head, he’d be the scariest thing I own!
Those pattern keepers are such a good idea!
I don’t really have any funny internet shopping stories… I did order a book once and didn’t get it from half.com. Then the shop shut down. It’s not very exciting.
I love her stuff. My husband is a fly fisherman and would like the tins for flies. I like the project bags. Sure hope I win!
I’m trying to think. We did buy a harp for my son on line. It was a piece of crap, but we knew that. He never even tried to play it though, so it’s good we just got that one, which was very fancy looking, and not a good one.
http://www.etsy.com/view_transaction.php?transaction_id=11104757
This bag is my favorite on her etsy store right now…. cause it’s PINK and fabulous – although I do use the stitchmarker tin every day (and I bought 2 more, 1 for mom and 1 for Aimee!)… The most fabulous internet purchase so far – probably any time I scored Woolmeisery or maybe this past week when I just *happened* to be on the Loopy Ewe and she updated… and then I fell down
You saw the score today!
I love the pink notion cases. I think the Olivia is my favorite one. But I love love love the project bags, and I’ve been looking for one a little more fashionable than a ziploc baggie lately.
There’s so much cute stuff in her shop that it’s hard to decide. But I love the idea of having these pattern keepers. I usually just use a post-it for the same purpose. Doesn’t work too well when it loses its sticky…
As far as internet purchases…I believe the very best would have to be the awesome jewelry I have come to own by way of Etsy.
I love the medium project bags and the pattern keepers…all of them!
The silliest internet purchase I ever had was really more about the misdirected delivery. I ordered some things, including “feminine products”, from an on line drug store and as usual with mail-ordered items, had the box delivered to me at work. Well, the box got delivered to the wrong division at the arts center and was opened by a guy in the museum gift shop. What do you think was his first clue that this stuff wasn’t for the store…
I love her pattern keeps and project bags! Thanks for linking her.. I have book marked her stuff. Thanks for linking to your blog on Rav, I didn’t know you had one. My worst internet purchase involved hair remover, that they sent me 3 sets off.. and wouldn’t refund ANY of my money. It was horrible too.. didn’t remove hair worth a damn.
Wow, what a great etsy shop! All her items are really pretty, but I’m most fond of the polka-dot pattern keepers(the set of 8 in 4 patterns). I’ve recently gotten into lace knitting and charts, and they’re *much* prettier than the plain bar magnets I’m using now. As for internet purchases…I think my favorite has been the Kauni in rainbow I ordered to make a revontuli shawl. I *really* love that yarn, and the shawl turned out great!
I really like the project bag that’s the twin of the one you’ve got posted here, actually. The brown with green flowers print is exactly my speed. As far as best/worst interweb purchases… my worst purchase was a box of breakfast bars from amazon that was supposed to be carrot cake-flavored. Note the words “supposed to be”. I had to eat them anyway, because I wasn’t about to toss out $20 worth of food for no reason. As far as my best purchase goes, that would probably be the $60 worth of paint I got for $20 from an online university store.
-cthulhulovesme on Rav
This is harder than I thought initially. So many pretty things! I love the project bags, but feel like I need to pick something else to mix it up. The pattern keepers and stitch markers are lovely, too, but I think I’m going to say the notions cases are my favourite. I have a little tea tin that I’m using for that sort of thing now, and it works, but it’s not nearly as pretty.
Hm. Internet purchases. I’ve actually been really fortunate and (so far) have not had anything really weird or unpleasant happen when I’ve bought stuff sight-unseen. I can tell you that the very first thing I bought offa the innernets was a chest freezer, from eBay. One of those ones you could fit three or four bodies into. Purchases since then have been a bit more typical.
I love the project bags. Her little tins are cute.. she must eat alot of altoids!! I’ve had pretty good luck in the internet purchase area. I haven’t had to do any returns or dispute anything. But my friend had one that is a topper she bought a coffee table on EBAY and paid $180 for shipping and when it got there, it is a little tray about 15″ by 12″ with these little legs… she is not a happy camper. I think it pays to read the description closely right???
I love the medium project bags (especially the one pictured above) but Andrea makes so many cute items. I love her fabric/pattern combos.
My worst internet purchase: I was buying vintage pots for my garden and as house decoration. Not all came with dishes to catch the water draining from the plants so I bought this big pretty clear glass dish thing from ebay that looked like it could be used to self water the plants. Well the photographer must have had some sort of fish eye lens on their camera because when I opened the package it turned out to be a GIANT ashtray-like object with absolutely no apparent functional use. Now when I buy things online I’m sure to check the measurements or ask.
Lurve the pattern keepers! I bought some beautiful butterfly stitch markers for my mother for Christmas. I asked her if she liked her stitch markers, she had no idea what I was talking about. I described them, and the box they came in, and she replied that she though they were a brooch, and pinned them to her cardigan on Christmas day. Headdesk.
Okay – the tins are tempting (since I have seen those in person) but my vote is for the sunny, bright bags. being a “bag lady” that would have to be it. The only memorable online purchase I ever made was for a small “cabinet” for holding sewing things. It was adorable, but the description failed to give the measurements and I failed to ask for them. I received a very cute doll-size cabinet. It could hold some sewing snaps and a thimble in it but not much more!!
So, being the bag whore that I am, I love all of her bags. But the pattern markers are amazing in form and function.
As for strange purchases, I love the Shakespeare play Twelfth Night in movie form with whatsername Corpse Bride. I ordered it off of eBay and a week or so later, I got the video tape in the mail (‘cuz I’m cheap). Only…well, the cover was write but the tape was a PBS reproduction, totally not what I ordered. I contacted the seller and said “Hey, what gives?” and his response was “That’s what you ordered!” “No, no it’s not. So either give me back my money or I report you to eBay.”
Money refunded, I am still without my Twelfth Night. I gotta just break down and buy the dang thing.
Personally think that the Tins are great.
Weirdest purchase I have made on the internet would have to be a 1964 Vespa Allstate scooter. Had to drive 145 miles each way to pic it up too.
Finally a contest that does not involve knitting socks or even sock yarn. Don’t get me wrong. I think sock yarn is beautiful as long as I do not have to knit a sock. I love the 10 pattern markers. Since I am newly into lace and reading charts, the pattern markers would definitely be something I’d like to get.
I have great success with my internet orders. The worst experience I’ve had is the exercise equipment I continue to buy that I continue to not use and my body looks the same as it did before the purchase.
Thanks for having a contest for us!!!
I loved the project bags! So if I won one that would be super awesome! My best internet purchase was an opal necklace I got on Ebay for $100 and a jeweler later told me it was worth $1000.
The butterfly stitch markers are what caught my eye first. Pretty stitch markers get me every time.
I have mostly had pretty good experiences with internet purchases, but nothing really stands out. The biggest disappointment I think was I tried to purchase a wool wash bar and a month I had to file with paypal because I never got it, and zero communication from the seller. :/ I got my refund, but I really wanted the yummy smelling wool wash bar.
She DOES have some great stuff!! I like her pattern keeper magnet thingies! Pretty colors!
As for internet purchases…I might have bought some yarn recently based entirely upon the fact that it had the word “flamingo” in its name. And I stand by it as a good choice, because I’m petting it now. That is all. Oh…and…long live the VLT!!!
Wow, what gorgeous things!! I am totally in love with the tins. I have a slight obsession with boxes, and tins that are hand decorated are the best! I’ve favorited her shop, and I see some purchases in my future.
I don’t have any internet purchases that come to mind right off. I’ve been thrilled with everything I’ve purchased through Etsy. I’ve bought enough stuff online that it all kind of blurs together.
I really like the pattern of fabric used on the medium project bag, and it’s reversibility.
I like buying perfume from Lime and Violet/ Happy Housewife, but unfortunately Canada Customs must think it’s something really good, as it’s always held up for a really long time at the border. Sigh. At least the bottles aren’t half empty when they get here!
Commenting! I love the bag. So cute!
Where’s my trip to Ireland?
So many drool worthy things! I’m really digging the Knit Notion Case-AndreaJene. And the pattern keepers rock. I can only think of a pathetic eBay purchase I made a few years back. I was living in a small town and couldn’t get special light bulbs for a lamp I got as a gift. It took so long for the bulbs to arrive that I bought another lamp that I ended up preferring anyway. Yup, truly pathetic.
i love everything. seriously. i can’t pick one favorite.
my bestest internet purchase EVAR was the noro yarn whih i am making a sweater out of which has been discontinued. seriously. i was so thrilled to even find it that i didn’t even look at the dye lot or the cost.
i love the tins but in have a ridiculous amount of little boxes. So the project bag is my choice.
My best buy online was my dog. It was actually a donation since it was a shelter but in picked her online and fell inlove when i met her in person.
I love everything Andrea does, and I agree, she is so impossible to hate it never even occurred to me to try. But I think the bags are my favorites.
Worst internet purchase experience ever – a couple years ago, I ordered a drop spindle from a very well known small indie spindle maker (name omitted to protect the guilty). They came onto a spinning group soliciting orders for spindles in a particular wood type that they only made available on infrequent (every 2 years give or so) occasions and by special order. I requested one and exchanged several emails with the contact person. About a month or so passed, and I received another email telling me that they were ready to ship and instructing me on how to make payment. I did this immediately and didn’t hear anything more. About a month goes by… I hadn’t received my spindle, and when I checked my credit card account, I discovered that they had charged my card twice.
I contacted the company contact person, got a response full of excuses as to how my card could have been charged twice, and promising to look into it and “make things right”. A week later, I hadn’t heard anything more from them. At that point I contacted my credit card company and had both charges reversed.
[...] two more days to enter the contest!!!! Ends Friday at err…umm…whenver I get home from work and work out a way to [...]
I really love the tins, and the stitch markers.
My internet purchase was a pair of shoes. expensive shoes. the box was marked with size 10, the paperwork said size 10. I tried them on and they were quite tight on my toes. It was like the ugly step-sister trying on Cinderella shoes, they were so pretty, and too small! My first thought was, OH NO expensive shoes are made differently than walmart fall-apart shoes.
Someone had put size 9 shoes in MY size 10 box, fortunately they came with free return UPS, so now they sit in their box in my car waiting for me to remember to go to the UPS.