Natural Stitches: Knitting On

This is going out in the newsletter this afternoon, but we thought we’d let the early bird catch the worm.

IT IS ON!

Once again, start winding your laceweight, polishing your Addi Turbos, and making an inventory of your sock yarn. We’re kicking off our Third Annual Summer of Socks and Lace contest, beginning NOW until Labor Day (September 6, 2010). Who can use the most sock yarn? Who can knit or crochet the most yardage of lace? Who wants to win a $50 gift card from Natural Stitches?

How does this work?

Starting NOW, stop by the shop to fill out your entry form. We’ll ask you to sign A Solemn Vow that all of the projects you enter will be completed between now and September 6.

When you complete a lace or sock project, bring it in to the shop and we will use our Very Accurate System (designed by a PhD and Professor of Mathematics, so we figure he knows what he’s doing) to determine the total yardage of your project. We will need your ball band to determine the yardage, so please bring that with you.

We will record your yardage in our book. The person with the greatest total yardage at the end of the summer in each of the categories will win a $50 gift card from Natural Stitches and the praise and adulation of all his or her peers.

And now, the rules, answers to commonly asked questions, and other fine-print kinds of things:

• You may enter any or all of the categories, but each project can only count once.
• You may use ANY yarn from your stash (because goodness knows we all have lots of stash), no matter where you got it, but yarn from Natural Stitches (and again, your ball band is critical) will earn double yardage. That means that your shawl that originally took up 300 yards of Malabrigo Sock, for example, will be recorded as 600 yards! Woo hoo!
• Yes, of course, crocheted lace and socks are eligible.
• What is lace? We’re using the Elizabeth Zimmermann definition: lace is a series of yarn-overs with accompanying decreases used to make holes.
• Our apologies to handspinners (yet again), but we still can’t figure out a way to accurately calculate yardage without making our heads explode. However, we have some surprises in store for you this summer that we hope will make up for it.
• For the sake of fairness, we cannot calculate mixed-ply projects accurately. Please stick to one kind of yarn per project.
• Past winners are eligible to enter.
• Can’t decide which category to enter? Torn between wanting to knit a whack of socks and longing to work on your Ten Shawls in 2010? We have a new category: Double Threat! This separate category is for those of you who want to knit both kinds of projects this summer.

We are so excited! For those of you who would like to learn how to make socks and lace, we have a variety of classes this summer to meet your needs. We’re looking forward to seeing what unfolds.

Questions? Leave a message here on our blog or email us at shop@naturalstitches.com.