A very happy new year to all of you in yarnland! We are celebrating in the usual Eat.Sleep.Knit fashion, with a new Yarnathon and new additions. 2014 brought you teams, which will continue in 2015, with a team reshuffle and new, adorable mascots.

Your 2015 Yarnathon teams are:

You can find your new team on your account page and your brand-spanking new Yarnathon dashboard!

We’ve tried to make the knit-a-long format more fun and more inclusive, with more options, more time, and more flexibility. Instead of one big knit-a-long announced each quarter, you’ve got your pick of twelve knit-a-longs you can complete at any time all year! We’ll focus on three each quarter, but you’ll be free to join in one, four, or hey all twelve, and nearly all of them offer multiple options to accommodate beginning and advanced knitters and crocheters. (Individual knit-a-longs are detailed separately here.)

But wait, there’s more! The challenges are going to be a little bit different and a lot bit of fun for 2015. In lieu of the bigger quarterly challenges, you can help out the ESK Booster Club for the Yarnathon where you can BOOST your individual yardage, support your team and earn even more prizes and yardage all year long.

The Booster Club is a little bit Yarnathon meets Girl Scouts meets the magic and nuttiness that is ESK. You’ll be able to earn merit badges by completing different yarn-related tasks, each associated with different point values. Your points can be used to earn prizes and yardage for yourself, your friends, and/or your team as you move through the five levels of Booster Club membership!

See below for a badge and level break down. Charts are easier, right?

For example, the “All the Single Ladies” badge is a medium point value badge and requires you to knit a single-skein project. If you complete, say, Piccadilly, you earn 10 points towards your first Booster Club membership level. If you complete any combination of badges that earns 70+ points, you will level-up into Entry Level and be able to choose from the prizes associated with that level. So as not to make things too overwhelming, we will release 13 badges per quarter worth a possible total of 150 points per quarter! But feel free to play along at your speed – you can earn badges from Q1 in Q4 if you’d like!

You will be able to submit your completed tasks to earn your badges using your dashboard which can be found on your ESK account. Once approved, your merit badges will appear on your dashboard!

When you reach the Silver Level, you’ll get your official Booster Club tote bag and badges you’ve earned to add to your sash! Aside from earning more yardage and prizes, we hope the Booster Club will encourage you to expand your knitting, perfect some skills, and have tons of fun! There are a variety of badges so any level knitter can play and, trust us, you will get a kick out of some of the badge names! We had so much fun coming up with the names and pictures for the badges and we absolutely cannot wait to share them with you! So help BOOST your team to the next level with the Booster Club! Here is a list of the badges:

Alternator – Complete a project alternating your skeins to ensure a perfectly blended hand-dyed knit!

Long Haul – Complete a project you’ve been working on for more than 9 months.

Colorwork Cutie – Complete a colorwork project.

All Your Base… – Own at least one of every base yarn Eat.Sleep.Knit offers from a single dyer (minimum 4 bases).

Social Stalker – Follow us on at least two forms of social media.

Special Delivery – Order yarn on your birthday!

Stash Diver – Complete a project entirely from your stash.

All the Single Ladies – Complete a single-skein project.

Yardage Beginner – Purchase one mile’s worth of yarn in a single order.

Binge Knitter – Watch an entire season of a TV show while knitting!

Queue Anonymous – More than 150 items in your Ravelry queue.

Accidental Moebius – Accidentally twist when joining in the round, even though you rolled your eyes when the pattern designer explicitly stated you should “be careful not to twist.”

Cast-on Queen – Complete a 400+ stitch cast-on!

Trivia will continue as usual! The questions can be found on our Twitter feed every Monday. The theme for the first quarter’s questions is colorways! Submit your answers on the Google Doc by midnight on the Friday following each question! Correct answers will earn you 50 yards which means you can earn 500 extra yards each quarter by playing trivia! The congratulatory e-mails telling you your yardage has been awarded will be sent by Monday at noon. Good luck!

So hold onto your yarn balls, kitties, as we race into another fun-filled year! Are you up for the challenge? We know you all will bring us another 365 days of joy while earning merit badges, knitting-a-long with us, making hilarious and helpful comments on the Ravelry forums, and sharing your jaw-dropping projects. Again, we cannot wait! Officially, let the 2015 Yarnathon begin!!