you got it—red scarf 2014

well, the vote was unanimous—none of us want to wait. YAY!!!

so here it is, the red scarf fundraiser design for 2014 along with some shamelessly blatant promotion (which you can expect more of as the month goes on, but i promise it’s for a great cause!)

i’m calling it snow tire scarf and you can click here to buy a copy of the pattern in our online yarn and pattern shop or click here to purchase it in ravelry.

emily and erica also put together a snow tire scarf kit from a small batch of special edition festivus sport yarn that we’ve had hidden away since last december with this very purpose in mind (whew that was a lot of waiting).

the scarf is a delicious mix of textures with a squishy cable right up the middle and best of all, completely reversible—it is literally identical on both sides. so if you opt for the infinity version as i have here, it will look well when looped or when worn down.

i will post progress of my own scarf as it grows as well as provide updates on our fundraising effort. i don’t have a lot of photos to show you yet, because this year we are changing things up a bit—instead of waiting til i’m done knitting my sample to release the pattern, we are all going to knit together while we watch our scholarship dollars pile up!

yes, it’s that time of year when we devote sales receipts from one pattern to raise money for our knitspot scholarship, which goes to one student who participates in foster care 2 success programs. the entire sale price of each snow tire scarf pattern sold during the remainder of november and all of december is added the knitspot scholarship pot.

you can participate in several ways:

1. purchase a pattern—the entire $7 retail price will go into the pot.
2. purchase a nifty scarf kit which includes the pattern PLUS a skein of special edition festivus sport, like the one i’m using for my scarf. if you go for that, we’ll put $10 in the pot (that’s the entire pattern price plus approximately 10% of the yarn price). for every skein of special edition festivus sport yarn you buy as a standalone, we’ll toss in $5
3. please, please, PLEASE tell everyone you know about the fundraiser—they don’t need to be a knitter to throw $7 at this wonderful cause. some ways you can help: put it on your Facebook page (and link it), tweet it (with a link!), pin it (yes, with link) and finally just drag your friends over to look at the blog, haha. we’ll even give them a “knitter for a day badge” if they help out.
4. join us for a fun red scarf KAL in our ravelry mothership—we promise a rollicking good time, plenty of support, and of course, neat-o prizes.

many of you are aware of the red scarf drive, for which knitters put together care packages that are distributed to students on valentine’s day (the 2014 drive closes on december 15, so there is still time to send a scarf or help out with gift cards and postage).

foster care 2 success, the sponsorship organization, assists students who are aging out of the foster care system to navigate a continuing education and advancement into independent adulthood. they provide guidance and counseling, classes in life skills, scholarships, and other types of support that a family would normally provide.

our december drive began as a way to raise a little money to send in for the postage fund, but it grew each year and eventually i realized we had enough to establish a FC2S scholarship. so far, we have exceeded each previous year’s amount by quite a lot; last year the scholarship grew to $4000; i’m excited to see how we’ll top that this year—as i know we will.

ETA: we got rather low on the red kits so david has created listings for other options, including one for our first test batch of better breakfast DK in porridge, which was spun at a slightly heavier weight, so we won’t be able to retail it alongside our other BBBs

ok, then let the games begin; i’ll be back in a couple of days to show you what i’ve got—between now and then, catch me in our ravelry group