tidings of comfort and joy

Posted on Posted in Bare Naked Wools, book reviews/events, home and family, patterns

happy holidays to all! we have much good news to share today and many, many things to be grateful for.

first, all of us at knitspot HQ are completely psyched to tell you this:

we are SO exploding this fundraiser with a bang!! (and cardigan is much happier about it than she looks—her fixator just gets in the way of her smile, haha)

we couldn’t be more excited, especially because we’re pretty sure we tipped that number over the lucky 7K since tuesday; thank you one and all.
and we still have one week to go . . . who knows, maybe we can make it to the magic 8!!

we had a lovely holiday note from foster care to success this past week and while it came to our house, it’s really for all of you. it’s true that what we give to this wonderful cause will expand and multiply beyond our imaginations; every seed dollar becomes so much more when planted in the future lives of these kids.

i also heard from our current scholarship recipient jelissa a few times this fall and she especially wanted to share her latest news during the fundraiser:

Hello Anne!
I am doing great! Sorry I wasn’t able to get back to you right away; the 1st [of december] was actually my birthday and I’m recovering from a cold.  Anyway, it’s looking as though I could possible get all As and maybe a B+ the lowest. Also, I am excited to hear  that  the fundraiser got off to a good start! I have attached a few presentations that I’ve worked on throughout this semester and included photos. Once again, thank you and the Knitspot community for everything!

This is the computer lab in the lower level of the school, I spent most of my days here doing work for my classes. One of the ways I was able to keep my grades up was to come here right after class and work on assignments in advance just to give myself a heads up for the week; by the end of the week I’m so exhausted. However, the bulk of my classes are on Mondays; I have three classes and I am here from 9am-9pm.

We experienced some snow over the weekend; it looked amazing in the park! It’s a huge change from the 60 degree weather we had experienced days before.

My best friend had a baby on October 4th and now I’m a Godmother! His name is Kaden Francis Drayton, I helped her find his first name- means fighter, and his middle name is her grandmother’s first name! This is him recently at one of his checkups, he’s now two months old.

Thank you again for everything, I will periodically set reminders to send more photos and maybe even videos for you guys to see. Since most of my classes require PowerPoint presentations; I’ve become quite good at them, maybe I can do a recap of the year/semester towards the end of December; I think that’d be fun!  I look forward to hearing from you and be on the look out for more updates!

jelissa also let me know that she’ll be spending the holidays in new jersey with a former foster family that she stays in close touch with; i was really glad to hear that she’d be surrounded with loved ones through this season. i hope she does have time now that school is out to send a few more photos and a followup note to share with you; i know it’s very heartwarming to hear news from our scholarship student from time to time.

i don’t know yet how many patterns and yarn we’ve sold during the fundraiser, but it has to be a lot—and each one was a building block that got us here. so please continue to spread the word and encourage your friends, knitting buddies, ravelry groups, knitting teachers and fellow students to participate—our goal is now unlimited!

if you are fired up and feel passionate after reading the fundraiser details, here are some small things you can do to help:

  1. purchase any of our 2017 red scarf fundraiser patterns herehere, here, here, and here, and/or add an extra donation on our website—use the pulldown menu to increase your gift and we will donate the entire pattern price PLUS that extra amount. we are happy to add the pattern to your rav library if you let us know!! (but we have to do it manually, so please tell us)
  2. purchase a pattern on ravelry hereherehere, here, here, and here—the entire retail pattern price will go into the scholarship fund.
  3. purchase a 2017 festivus kit which includes the pattern PLUS enough special edition festivus 4.0, to knit a scarf or cowl. we will add 5% of your yarn purchase price to the fund.
  4. buy one or more skeins of festivus 4.0 for any project and we will add 5% of your purchase price to the fund.
  5. please, please, PLEASE tell everyone you know about the fundraiser—they don’t need to be a knitter to throw $7 (or more!!) at this wonderful cause. please mention it with a link in your favorite ravelry groups, a link and hashtag on your Instagram, 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 “knit naked sticker badge” if it helps them to help out.
  6. 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.

 

i am so very grateful to our partner designers who joined me in creating designs to our scholarship effort this year; BIG hugs to kate atherley, mary o’shea, and kerri blumer for their contributions.

and speaking of our partner designers, here are a few other options for holiday gift knitting that are designed especially for using our festivus 4.0 yarns. you can find kits for all of these designs in the FESTIVUS section of our online shop. and while you’re there, take a moment to browse past festivus designs for more quick knit gift ideas.

kate atherley’s mayberry cap is a super quick, last-minute project to knit in festivus 4.0 worsted or any of our worsted weight yarns (it’d be extra yummy in chebris worsted, wow!). ellen knit one up in no time and it’s SO darn cute! kate has many, many clever, fun to knit designs in her pattern shop; you should take a peek.

keri blumer started the rollout of our 2017 pattern train with her andiron cowl and andiron scarf designs available for the ENTIRE fundraising period (we only asked for a month of sales, but she’s extending it!); she’s just awesome and she has lots of beautiful designs to share—be sure to check out her ravelry shop.

in november, we featured our festivus 4.0 sport weight in a delicious trio of colorwork accessories by designer mary o’shea of tullymongan designs.

mary has created many delightful items using bare naked wools yarns—check out her designer page for alternatives that will also work well with festivus 4.0 sport or worsted.

first up, if you live in a very cold climate and need to be outside frequently, these gorgeous cranberry trellis mittens might be right up your alley.

and if you like your accessories to coordinate mary’s got your back here too, with an awesome little cap and fingerless mitts.

the cranberry lattice cap is a match for the cranberry lattice mitts, but also coordinates perfectly with the cranberry trellis mittens—note the pattern in the thumb which matches the hat.

and finally, my bottoms up booties design, which one knitter described as “the coziest pair of slippers she’s ever knit”—which really warmed my heart. this pattern includes instructions for a variety of finishing options and we’ve got bootie kits to go with each of them!

the yarn has been so lovely to knit with that it inspired a new sweater design, which i’ve begun to knit in spare moments between finishing up other projects.

so far it’s just a sleeve on the way, but i promise, this will be an easy knit; i’m working in the round all the way up so as to take advantage of the subtle gradient shifts in the yarn. more on this as it progresses, but let me just share that i am totally in love with the feel of this fabric—it is soft, lush, and squishy beyond belief. it will make the ultimate sweatshirt-type pullover that mister knitspot loves to wear. my only regret is that i didn’t think of it or start it sooner so he’d be wearing it tomorrow . . .

if you are interested in a sweater quantity of this beautiful limited-run yarn, we can help you put a set together—choose a more varied gradient or a subtle one; we can pick them and send photos for approval before you purchase! email operationsATknitspotDOTcom for more info.

and from the bottom of our hearts, thank you for all that you do to make this happen each year!

ps: i’m offering a parade of christmas lights on our instagram account throughout the season—follow @knitspot to see the amazing displays that cardigan and i have discovered on our evening walks (use #twelvenightsofchristmaslights to add your own); trust me, the best is yet to come!

7 thoughts on “tidings of comfort and joy

  1. Wonderful news about the status of the scholarship fund! I’ve bought all the patterns and a skein of each yarn, but am dithering about what to make. Ola, Cardigan! You’re looking good! Merry Christmas to all the Knitspotters!

  2. Wow!! Awesome news about the fundrasier! How is Cardigan doing? When does her fixator come off? Merry Christmas!!!

  3. What great news about the scholarship fund! And I’m watching that whole Cranberry sweatshirt-like sweater development with great interest while I work on my Birches in the Red Scarf yarn from a couple years back… Happy New Year to sll the Knitspot gang!

  4. Please post an update on Cardigan. she is so lucky to have found you and David.
    Happy New Year

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