Oh, golly. Today's the big day to find out who won the Embroidery Flowers for Elizabeth book, plus the other goodies. This give-away is a little more difficult to bring to a close than usual, for a number of reasons...
The first reason is that the response has really been fantastic! I'm sure this is due to the book, undoubtedly. I wonder how much of it has to do with the extras? Are the extras worth it? (Of course, to the winner, I think they will be!) But what I wonder is, would everyone have signed up for the give-away still without the extras? I think pretty much everyone would have. What say you?
Yes, Susan O'Connor's book is beautiful, and I do hope that you all have the opportunity of acquiring it for your own libraries. If not, I hope you can talk your local library into carrying it, so that you can use it there!
Now, the other point of difficulty. You know, it's one thing to do a give-away and disappoint 100 or so people. It's much harder to do one and disappoint some 270 people. The larger the number of disappointments, the harder it is to do this! I just can't help thinking that there are going to be some 270-something disappointed people in the world - all because of me. Aaaaaaack!!!
But that is the nature of the thing, I suppose. And on the bright side, I'll be giving away another copy of the book in the coming week!
Now, to answer the question someone posed, about how I choose a winner. It would be impossible to keep something like this fair - totally objective - unless it were done in a totally objective, random way, like pulling a name out of a hat. I'm sure you all understand that I've got regular readers I've gotten to know well, communicating with them often, reading their frequent comments, and so forth. Wouldn't it be tempting to just pick one of them? At the same time, there are several folks who read my site who are friends off-line. Wouldn't it be ever-so-easy to pick one of them? Then, if you look at responses - well, if I judged on those, it would be so difficult to pick a winner, because I would mull over so many of your responses, over and over and over again. (This would not be easy!) So, you see, none of those will do, because they aren't really objective.
So, the solution is complete objectivity. I use a random number generator. I move all the names to a spreadsheet and mix them up (like shuffling, electronically), removing any duplicates (identical posts) along the way. Then, I generate a random number via random.org, and that's the person who wins. To me, it's important not to stray from this, because then it would become less objective and too difficult to choose.
So, we'll just call it .... Fate. Destiny. Divine Providence.
The winner of this give-away is:
MNStitcher (signed Bonnie)!
Bonnie, please contact me before Thursday morning with a mailing address! If I don't hear from you by Thursday morning, I'll draw another winner.
For everyone, thank you for your responses! I wish I could give you all a book, but since that isn't possible, I'll give away one more in the upcoming week. Look for the give-away!
Congrats, Bonnie!
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