Watching Kelley’s videos about how to make those yummy looking pretzels reminded me that I never posted a blog about our recent company wide stash exchange party. Oops! It was on January 13th, so it’s not like it was THAT long ago. There was definitely quite a bit of method to the madness. First you had to get weighed in.

This was a very important first step because there was a prize for the person with the hugest stash, and we all had to sit in a circle starting with the lady with the biggest stash (ahem, Karen) and ending with the person who brought the least. I was near the end because I’m still kind of a new knitter and I haven’t built up a very large stockpile of yarn yet. I think I brought 1.7 pounds.
After …

Last spring I purged my stash of anything I didn’t absolutely love. This weekend, with Karen and Tina keeping me company, I went through my much smaller collection of yarns and assigned projects to each grouping. It would have been overwhelming to purge and assign in the same process. I’m so glad I did it in two sessions. I started the whole process as soon as we were finished making the Chocolate/Caramel Pretzels.
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Tina, Karen and I were all up early on Saturday morning. We didn’t to waste any time eating breakfast and getting settled down for lots of fiber activities.
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It’s time to spill the beans. The pattern for the speed knitting contest is…
A large Hemlock Ring Blanket by Brooklyn Tweed! Did anyone guess it?
You can find the pattern and chart here for free- http://www.theraineysisters.com/ccount/click.php?id=11 and get more information on the pattern here- http://theraineysisters.com/?cat=51
You’re knitting the 900 yard version of the pattern. On Ravelry where we first looked up the pattern Brooklyn Tweed’s Ravelry entry says 600-900 yards, so we chose 900 so that everyone is doing the same thing. To be more specific, you need to go up to at least row 71 of the pattern’s feather-and-fan chart. Ready, set, KNIT!
Don’t forget to post photos of your progress in the knit along. The first person to post a link to a photo of their finished, blocked (it can still be on the blocking wires), Hemlock Ring Blanket in the Speed Knitting Contest knit along group wins! Good luck!!
ETA: 11:07am, …

Yay – I am finally finished with my Suri Dream afghan! It took a little over two months of sporadic knitting, but here it is. I used the Bayou color of Suri Dream Hand Dyed and knit on size 11 needles. I cast on 150 stitches and just kept going until I used up all 9 balls of yarn. The afghan is pretty stretchy, but I’d estimate its unstretched size at 65″ square. <

Wow.
The competition started at 9am on Monday, February 2nd, and our contestants have been knitting furiously ever since. I’m not even sure some of them stopped to eat or sleep! That gorgeous Hemlock Ring Blanket was completed by Cristi-Lael at 2:54 (PST). Congratulations Cristi-Lael!!! She knit the whole thing in less than 72 hours!!!
Our runner up, Ruthmci, finished her blanket at 3:03 (PST). It was an incredibly close race!

All of us here in the office are very impressed by the dedication and speed of all our contestants. Thanks so much for playing along!
Peggy Stuart rounded out the top 3, finishing her blanket at 4:05. Nice work! Cranberry must be a lucky color, don’t you think?

And if you didn’t get to join in the fun, it’s not too late, the contest knitalong has …

We recently found out that another company sells a product named “Essential”, so we need to rename our Essential yarn line. We’ve been brainstorming, but honestly, we’re stumped, so we need your help. Post your suggestions below, and if we pick your name, you win a $50 Knit Picks gift certificate. It can’t be a name that any other yarn company currently uses. If you’re feeling generous, we’ve got a super cute new gift card right now with a heart shaped ball of yarn on it, and we’ve got another one in the works for Mother’s Day, but I won’t blame you if you want to keep the whole prize for yourself!
If you haven’t tried Essential yarn before, it’s a 75% Superwash Merino Wool, 25% Nylon fingering weight sock yarn. It comes in 52 colors including kettle dyes, tweeds, twists, solids, heathers, and multi-colored …

I’m doing a crafty-exchange with a friend who lives in northern Maine. She requested some cheerful fingerless gloves for wearing in her chilly house, and she offered to trade some custom embroidery work. I finally have her package ready to go.
These mitts are from a free pattern (Fetching from knitty.com) and I knit them out of some Merino Style in my stash (in the old Maple Leaf colorway).

They’re super-soft, and it was a great speedy stash-busting project. I did add a row of single crochet to the bind-off edge, just to reinforce it and keep it from rolling. It’d be a good project for teaching someone how to do Magic Loop and how to cable.

I had just been to a great Spanish tapas restaurant here in Portland, and one of my favorite …

My dad and I are working hard this week to complete a few construction projects while he’s in town visiting from North Carolina.

Transforming my back patio into a screened-in back porch was on our to-do list this past weekend. We made good progress, but the fingerless gloves I was wearing hit a major snag. Literally. I caught the bind off on a piece of wood and ripped out about 3 inches of it. These are my favorite gloves!!! This was a crisis of epic proportions!!!
Luckily, Doc Kerin was on hand to diagnose the problem and perform the necessary procedure. She picked up all the dropped stitches for me and prescribed some Palette in Asphalt Heather . Now all I have to do is bind off again and weave in the ends, and my gloves will be better than …