Monthly Archives: March 2014

Q2 Sneak Preview

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You’ve got one more week to finish up those Q1 projects and snag that last skein of yarn to get you to the 5 mile mark, but we know many of you are wondering what’s coming next week in Q2 and wanting to plan your purchases.

Q2’s knit-a-long will be a fun one – you can knit (or crochet) any project at all using your team’s mascot! To clarify, this only includes items that actually have the mascot on them, not just the mascot in the name (for example, Cookie A’s famous Monkey socks would not count as a “monkey” project). There so many possibilities for this one that I kind of want to knit something for all the teams (perhaps a special bonus option?). Some ideas for you, which are by no means the only options:

FiberMonkeys – anything with a monkey on it:
gobananas monkeymittens sockmonkeyxmasstockingmonkeyballsmicromonkeymonkeypotholderIMG_0928_medium2IMG_6024_medium2abc_medium2SMMJ_test-RaeLynn_medium2cover2_medium2rainbow_sock_monkey_amigurumi_crochet_pattern_02_mediumimage_medium28391752705_805bc953a2_zzaru_rav1_medium2

Octopurls – anything with an octopus (squid also okay for those of you who don’t feel the need to be technical!):
octopodesTwo_Octopus_medium22207082725_788a1afd7b_zpickleschristmas_1132a_medium2knitting-octopus1_medium22012-09-05_07.09.05_mediumOctopuss_medium2octomitts_pair_medium2Octopus_Dreadlock_Slouch_by_madmonkeyknits3_medium2Shell3_mediumDandy_Sir_Cephalopod_058_medium2octopusgenser2_medium2OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA3_double_knit_kraken_cowl_medium2IMG-20120414-00037_medium2

Roboknits – robots, of course!
Robot_Mittens_both_mediumroboto1_medium2224476_Z3_medium2IMG_7651_medium25127740901_f148e0d7d3_z5732909424_6c20274fe7_zRocco2_medium2 8520584501_1ee69d8ac3_zcylon2_medium26689843451_1740264ee2_zIMG_4310_medium3492608980_44a608e817_nluvbots_rav2_medium023_medium240153_medium

Stitchosaurs – includes dinosaurs of all types:
weehistoricdinosaur_grey_800_medium2foto1_medium2IMG_1746_1_medium2raptor_mediumScreen_Shot_2012-06-07_at_9.25.41_PM_medium2trexs1_medium2251520_1517537378382_1232910995_31413360_7568709_n_medium2triceratops_medium2IMG_3365_1_1e_medium2 paleogulr_mediumDino_hood_marked__3__medium25783713690_7ba5e8fe27_z2966979609_fe1df6a04d_zGreen_Dino_Front_medium2

We’ll be officially kicking off this KAL on Tuesday, April 1st, when we’ll also announce the Q2 challenge. One more hint? If you’ve been thinking about picking up one of our awesome Yarnathon t-shirts, now wouldn’t be a terrible time! (individual team shirts can be found near the bottom of that link)

Trivia #10 and Q1 Knit-a-long Submissions

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As nearly all of you discovered last week, the Yarnathon was born in 2008 (the last week of February, if we’re being specific), a bit less than 6 months after we opened our doors. It was inspired by, of all things, a “beer around the world” club one of our local restaurants does, where they reward customers with T-shirts, hats, and of course, free beer, for trying different beers within a week, month, or year. While the Yarnathon turned into something entirely different (and definitely non-alcoholic!), the idea behind it really remains remarkably similar – a frequent buying program that celebrates the customer!

That wraps up our trivia game for this quarter, but never fear, a new batch of ten questions will resume the first Monday of April!

So, the time has come to start admiring all your awe-inspiring knit-a-long projects! If you haven’t yet, start by uploading your project to Ravelry and tagging it with the tag “q1-new-to-you” and your team’s tag, so we can all look at the wonderful projects that have come out of this event! On the 31st, we’ll open a voting thread so everyone can vote for their favorite projects, but in the mean time you can get started submitting your projects to us!

The Google Form has been working so well for everyone that it seems like a good way to submit your projects for us to credit. So, you can officially submit your Q1 knit-a-long projects here! All Yarnathoners who complete(d) at least one eligible project will receive 1000 virtual yards toward his or her individual Yarnathon totals. The team with the most participants who complete an eligible project will also receive two virtual “finishers/medalists” towards their team totals at the end of the year!

To be eligible, projects must be:

  • Started on or after January 1, 2014
  • Finished on or before March 31, 2014
  • Completed using only yarn from Eat Sleep Knit
  • Uploaded to Ravelry and tagged with knit-a-long tag “q1-new-to-you” as well as your team’s tag (“fibermonkeys”, “octopurls”, “roboknits” or “stitchosaurs”). Let us know if you have a special circumstance that prevents you from uploading to Rav by e-mailing customer service.

Don’t have a project yet? There are still two weeks left, plenty of time for a small project experimenting with colorwork, brioche stitch, entrelac, a new type of needle or cast-off/on, and so much more!

Q1 Trivia Question #10 – Last One!

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Last week’s question asked you to guess how many orders we got during our first Black Friday sale, which took place just a few weeks after we opened our doors. The answer is 116! Which doesn’t sound like a lot today, but at the time, ESK was pretty much just me and my guest bedroom closet; I was still handwriting address labels and delivering packages to the post office myself, and I was still at the point where I would call Dan to tell him whenever we got an order. So you can imagine my surprise, in the context!

Nowadays, the sale is just as insane compared to our normal daily operations, but we’re a lot more, well, prepared. And we don’t wind yarn during the sale anymore, which is probably one of the biggest time savers!

Well, we’re wrapping up this quarter’s trivia game with our final question this week! Trivia Question #10: What year did we launch the Yarn Marathon? 

Submit your answers to https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1xRJQEugTnHG4tEGo7xgdfw6-REg0g2CSemOCGBo5fMM/viewform by Friday! If you submit multiple answers, we’ll use the last one you submit.

On Monday, we’ll reveal the correct answer and tell you more about how you can submit your Q1 knit-a-long projects – we’ll start up a new round of trivia for Q2 in the first week of April!

Q1 Trivia Question #9

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Last week’s question was: “What month do we start prepping for the Black Friday sale?”

The answer is August, and those of you who found our Instagram of Tiffany making up lotto bags while all the other retail employees were off at DragonCon were right that this was part of it. It might seem way too early, but, well, it’s not! If we start any later, we are running around in a panic the day before the sale instead of enjoying our Thanksgivings with our families. (since we can’t hang out with them Friday and Saturday!) Someone mentioned we wouldn’t have anywhere to store our preps, to which I direct you back to our 14,000 square feet of space, half of which is warehouse. From August to November, if you were to peek back there, you would see the thousands of boxes Lindsay makes up in advance of the sale and bins and bins of lotto bags and extra prize packages!

I admit that we all really enjoyed this one, as there was so much thought put into it about what prepping entailed, when it could conceivably start, and we also learned from your response to our hint that September is a very special month. (it’s the 9th month and has 9 letters in its name, a coincidence we did not realize!) We also clarified earlier in the week that freaking out about the sale and prepping for it were two different animals, and let me just say that we freak out about the sale for most of the year, assuming it’s happening (we always assume it is). It is a crazy, insane event and there is a crazy amount of work that goes into it. (Bonus fact: much like a school teacher, when Dan and I decided to start a family, we even attempted to plan around the Black Friday sale, it’s that crazy.)

So, it’s time for a new question, off of last week’s theme:
Trivia Question #9: How many orders were placed during the first Black Friday sale in 2007? Before you get too alarmed, check out the submission form, where I’ve made this a multiple choice question with ranges, so you’ve got a good chance of guessing!

The Google Form was so successfull last week that we’re planning to stick with it – go to https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1xRJQEugTnHG4tEGo7xgdfw6-REg0g2CSemOCGBo5fMM/viewform to submit your answer to this week’s question by Friday! If you submit multiple answers, we’ll use the last one you submit.