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!

Thanks to ALL!

Thank you all for helping The Unique Sheep have a very successful 2009! We are so lucky to get to create products for warm, fuzzy, generous fiber people and try our best to make sure that all the Unique Sheep packages that reach your doors are opened with smiles. We look forward to providing you with more lovely, fibery goodness in the next year.

We wish that 2010 brings you much joy, love and peace and that all your fiber projects come out better than you imagine.

Kelly and Laura

On a separate note: I want to publicly thank my beautiful, talented, and extremely intelligent Unique Sheep partner, Laura. She has been compassionate and supportive as a few sad, family events took me away from the dye studio much more than I would have liked this year. She even encouraged me to stay home with my mom who badly broke her leg the day before we were supposed to leave for SAFF.

Laura works very hard to make all of our Unique Sheep customers as happy as possible. I am constantly delighted by her talent and believe she could not be a better partner.

So, Thank You, Laura. I look forward to working along with you in 2010 to make sure The Unique Sheep continues to flourish.

Kelly

Happy Holidays!

We hope that you are celebrating the holidays with good food, good company and plenty of time to relax and knit. That's what we plan to do as well, so we won't be spending much time in the studio during the next week. We'll still be checking email and you are welcome to place your order through the website. And after a short break we'll both be eager to have our hands back in the dye pots!!

Introducing... Flounce

I am so excited to announce the release of a new pattern by the talented young designer Danido Crafty. This is Dani's first pattern released by us, but she has a number of other great patterns on her website and Ravelry. Flounce is a small project that would make a great gift, or a treat for yourself once all the holiday gift knitting is done. It is my favorite type of project- one that gives you a chance to try lots of interesting techniques but not too much of any one thing to get bored!