Unique Sheep SWAG

Customers keep asking for us to offer coffee mugs with the Unique Sheep Logo on them, and maybe even t-shirts or tote bags. We'd love to offer these things for sale or as "extras" in our club shipments. But to get decent prices we need to order large batches, so we need to decide on just a few things that we want a lot of (rather than a lot of different things that we only want a few of). And its really hard to decide because there are so many options! So we want your help. Leave us a comment and let us know:

1) Would you prefer a t-shirt, mug and/or tote bag? If you would buy more than one thing, let us know that, too!

For Mugs:
1) Do you prefer white, dark color, pastel or bright color for the main color of the mug?
2) How large a mug do you like? (small/med/large or # ounces)
3) Do you like the standard shaped mugs or the fancier ones with smooth curves or interesting shapes?
4) How much would you pay for a Unique Sheep Mug? (this will help us choose a mug style since they range in price)

For T-Shirts:
1) short sleeved or long sleeved?
2) favorite color?
3) size?
4) How much would you pay for a Unique Sheep T-Shirt?

We need to do more research about tote-bag options before we know which questions to ask!

Thanks for your help!

Unique Sheep Ambassadors

We love all of our customers, but sometimes a customer stands out above the rest. This is the customer who talks about her experiences with The Unique Sheep on his blog and podcast, encourages her LYS to start carrying Unique Sheep yarns or convinces all of her friends to join our clubs. This is the customer who keeps our Ravelry boards active and encourages her fellow club members when they need help with the patterns or are indecisive about continuing. We can't do enough to thank these customers; not only do they help our business grow (word of mouth is our primary form of "advertising") but they make it so much fun for us and for other customers. And they do it without being asked or receiving any reward. But we feel like they do deserve to be recognized for all that they have done, and so we have decided to give them the honored title of Unique Sheep Ambassador.

We would like to publicly thank and recognize the following customers as official, card carrying, Unique Sheep Ambassadors:

Ivy Reisner: Ivy is a member of many of our clubs and an active participant in our Ravelry groups. She is almost always the first to have finished her club projects! She has brought many new customers to The Unique Sheep through her podcast, Knit Spirit.

L-B Hessa and Ruth Hamlin-Douglas: L-B and Ruth are two of our most active customers on Plurk. They first discovered The Unique Sheep when they signed up for our Secret Garden Mystery Shawl KAL and since then have been so enthusiastic about the KAL and Unique Sheep in general that we credit them with the increased subscription to our next mystery KAL, The Enchanted Wood!

David Reidy: Well known for his podcast Sticks and String, David has been a member of our Ram Club since the first series and everytime he receives a club shipment he reviews it on his podcast. Its so much fun for us to be listening to his show and suddenly hear him mention us!

Allison George: Alli is our official Head Groupie. Aside from the important job of keeping Laura sane, she helps run the booth at SAFF. As an employee at her LYS she has encouraged many new customers to try Unique Sheep yarn.

Chelsea Powers: In addition to being outspoken on Plurk, Chelsea told her LYS owner about us and encouraged her to place an order. Now the Middleford Yarn and Stitchery Shoppe is one of the best places on the West coast to buy Gradiance Sets!

Do you know of someone who deserves the title of Unique Sheep Ambassador? Please nominate them by emailing us at laura@theuniquesheep.com and telling us who and why.

The Crisis in Haiti

As the world rushes to help Haiti after the massive earthquake hit the small country, many people are wondering what they can do to help. In a situation like this its easy to feel powerless when we are stuck at home, dealing with the every day needs of our families, work, etc. The best thing to do, if you are able, is to donate money to an organization such as Doctors without Borders. Stephanie Pearl McPhee encouraged knitters to do exactly this on her blog, and if you haven't read it yet then please do.

We have noticed that many designers/dyers/etc have been posting products for sale where a portion of the proceeds are donated to Doctors without Borders or the Red Cross. We feel that simply donating to the organization of your choice is best because then 100% of the proceeds go directly to those in need. However, if you prefer to donate by purchasing, we'd like to remind you of our Doctors without Borders colorways and pattern. You could even buy a skein, knit a pair of socks and then send them to Doctors without Borders to keep the feet of one of their doctors or nurses warm and dry!

Knitting for Knitters

You know what we don't do enough of? Knitting for each other. As in, for other knitters. As knitters, we often knit for other people. But how often are those other people knitters? If you are like me, almost never. When I need to give a gift to a knitter I chose yarn or needles or fun notions. Instead of gifting a knitter with socks, I give her a pattern and skein of yarn and tell her to knit her own. And there is nothing wrong with that- she gets to enjoy knitting them and then wearing them, its like a gift that keeps giving. But its also nice to give, and receive, already knit items. I can only think of three hand knit gifts that I have ever received, and yet as a knitter I'm hugely excited and appreciative of hand knit gifts (unlike many non-knitters who don't understand the time and attention and expensive yarn that goes into hand knit gifts). I need to remember this the next time I have a knitter friend that needs a gift!

You might wonder why I'm thinking about this topic, and I have a good reason. My good friend Alli (the Official Unique Sheep Groupie, really, she has a card. and a button) knit me a beautiful cowl as a Christmas present and gave it to me yesterday. I wore it out to dinner today and love, love love it. And you know what makes it even more special? She used a pattern designed by one of my friends- Daniella at Danido Crafty. The pattern is the Verge Neckwarmer, but made a bit smaller so that it didn't eat me (what can I say, I'm petite). And you know what makes it even more super special? She used Unique Sheep yarn. So I can wear it at festivals and stuff to show off Unique Sheep yarn. Plus, its Super Wool Gigante so its insanely soft and squishy and warm. How lucky am I?

And the winner is...

Our random number generator has picked the following comment as our winner:

errs said...

Oh - definitely Reflecting Pool.

Congratulations Errs! I'll ship the magazine to you next week!

p.s. Reflecting Pool is even the color I ended up picking- I'll post photos soon!

Ruth's Tunic

Now that all my holiday projects are done, I'm ready to cast on something for myself and I think its time for a new sweater! Every since Ruth's Tunic was published in Yarn Forward this fall its been calling my name. So I've decided that if I can get one more thing off the needles I'll let myself cast on. I'm going to use Sashimi since its the yarn the pattern was written for and because its soo soft and light but I don't have a sweater in it yet. But what colorway? It needs to be Gradiance, obviously. I like to wear blues, browns and greens. Maybe Queen Krista or Reflecting Pool? Or something more neutral like Wood Stock? Or a bit bolder with Hurricane Meadow? Its so hard to decide!

If you were going to knit this sweater, which colorway would you pick? Leave a comment with you answer and we'll randomly pick one commenter to win a FREE COPY OF YARN FORWARD, including this pattern!