It's time for me to announce the name of the winner of my Happy Dance drawing! I worked hard to make this as fair and random as possible. To start with, I put the name of everyone who sent me an email for the contest in an Excel spreadsheet. I sorted them to make sure that there were no two names that were the same. This was necessary because not everyone included their first and last names and I didn't want to have a situation where I couldn't tell who belonged to what name. Putting the list together gave me a chance to read all the happy dances over again. It really made me wish that I could have a prize for everyone, because they all made me smile and feel happy. It was also so great to hear from so many people who read my blog but don't comment very often or don't have blogs of their own.

Getting Ready for the Drawing: Names on Paper

I then printed the names out and did my best to make sure that each name was on a reasonable sized piece of paper and that all the pieces of paper were of equal size. In the end, I had 82 entries for the drawing.

Names in the Box

I folded each slip of paper in half and then dropped it in the lovely fabric box that my mom made me. I figured there had to be good vibes in a box made out of a fabric with a yarn pattern on it. I then proceeded to both mix the slips of paper with my hands and to shake them around with the lid of the box on, in hopes that everything would get mixed around well and the level of randomness would continue to increase.

John Mixes Some More and Selects a Name

Because this contest was in honor of John and his good progress with eye healing, I decided he needed to be the one to draw the name. He's become a remarkably good sport about all this knit-blogging business, because he knew that the drawing would require some photography. Here he is mixing the names around, just about to draw out the big winner.

Can I have a drum roll please?

May Eye Present the Winner... Kendall Frazier!

The winner of the yarn, needles and Here There Be Dragons Sock Pattern is Kendall Frazier. Kendall is from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Kendall's Happy Dance is one that is both simple, and one that I think anyone who knits can appreciate:

My happy dance is best done with margaritas in a yarn shop and a few good friends. Can't think of anything better as a celebration!

Ah, Kendall, if only we could find a yarn shop with a liquor license! Now theres a concept that I haven't found yet in a LYS! Expect an email from me in your inbox and we'll work out the yarn and needles that you'd like to have.

And as promised, you can read Kendall's and the other 81 entries on my Happy Dancing Page. There are some really lovely things in there, some with pictures and video to support them. Some are inspriational. Definitely worth the time for a read through. I hope you all will enjoy reading them over as much as I did when I received them! Thank you to everyone who sent something to me and participated in the contest. This was definitely a lot of fun for me as well. I might have to come up with an excuse to do another one in the future!