Did you get a chance to watch or listen to Obama’s inaugural speech yesterday? A few of us here in the office tuned in online. The quote that really struck home was, “The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart – not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.”
That made us think about what we could to help our local community here in the Portland area. As you may have noticed, some of our yarn colors are on clearance right now and are being discontinued to make room for new colors. Most of our yarn lives in our warehouse in Ohio, but we do keep skeins of every color …

I’ve just added some new desktop wallpapers of the latest Felici & Risata images, the Palette Tranquil Bag, and a new image of Imagination yarn. The Imagination image shows two of the four new colors that will be debuting later this week (Friday I think). Can you spot which ones are new?
Imagination is a yarn line that marches to the beat of its own drum, as we plan to add a few new colors to it periodically throughout the year to keep things fun (rather than launching new colors with spring or fall yarns once a year). I always have such a great time coming up with the new colorways and the imaginative names to go with them. The good news is that soon you’ll be able to come up with your own colorways, as we’ll be offering Imagination in a Bare …

Tina and Karen came up to the house last Friday night for a sleepover!! At our company-wide stash exchange a couple of weeks ago, Tina brought some absolutely delicious caramel/chocolate covered pretzels. Karen and I asked her to show us how to make them so we would be able to snack on them Friday and Saturday. Well, I kept a few to eat on Sunday.
What I have learned from a weekend of filming is that I say “ok” WAAAAY too often. I promise to work on that bad habit in future videos. 🙂

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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 you …

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 …