If you get our catalogs or browse our web site (which I’m assuming you do if you’re reading this blog…), you’ve probably noticed quite a few photos of models showing off hand knit shawls, hats, socks, gloves.

You may have even seen photos like this of finished knit items like sweaters, pillows, afghans, dog bags, felted bowls… if you can make it out of yarn, we’ve probably done it at least once, maybe twice.

And yes, we knit those things ourselves. We have a team of test knitters knitting and purling away at this very moment. We have people at their desks in front of their computers, playing with swatches and cables and trying to use new sock yarns in new ways, inventing new patterns for our catalogs and web sites.

So as you can imagine, with all the knitting we’ve got going on, we have piles and piles of cardigans, headbands, bags, skirts, and their fiber-y friends stacking up downstairs. We can’t reuse them. We don’t want to frog them. So what’s a knitter to do?

Did you guess give them to charity? Ding ding ding! That’s just what I did today. I dropped off two ginormous boxes of projects previously featured in our catalogs (is that the knitted equivalent of an artist formerly known as Prince?) at Catlin Gable, a local school in the Portland area, for their HUGE annual rummage sale this fall. All the money raised is going to go to the school for their programs and educational materials. That makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

So fuzzy that I’m already concocting some big plans for what to do with some of our other catalog superstars in the near future. I’ll keep you posted. <