Thanks Pinterest, we NAILED IT!

Here is a Pinterest fail of epic proportion. These genius knots look just like yarn balls so we thought it would be adorable to make a few. We didn’t really have an intended purpose yet but who does? We could have put them in a glass vase or maybe hung them somewhere. Well, we could have done a plethora of things if this project didn’t turn into a frustrating knotted ball of nothing that a cat nommed on for the better part of the afternoon. But this step-by-step/picture-by-picture tutorial made it look easy so we tried and tried! We couldn’t possible be this dense, right? Wrong!

Football Shoulders Capelet of Awful

This nightmare comes from our photographer, Emily L. In 2009, she wanted to knit something for her sister’s birthday. She scoured Ravelry and finally decided on Shell Dance Capelet by Jane Thornley which is a lovely, drapey capelet. It’s advertised as a “stash-busting project” because it uses small amounts of multiple colors. She knew her sister would love it so she set out to find the perfect yarn. Now. The pattern calls for light, fine fingering yarn but, Emily L knew what she was doing and purchased worsted weight wool in a multitude of colors. She also thought it would be nice to alternate a solid panel with a gradient/gradual color change panel. Thinking back, this would have been great on a cowl or scarf but this was a loose capelet with drop stitches…no ma’am. So she knit. And she knit. To quote her directly, “Why didn’t I stop sooner?” The thing turned out to be this huge mess appropriately named the Football Shoulders Capelet of Awful. It was so huge that it dwarfed her over-sized office chair while taking pictures. It was bad. REALLY bad. Wrong colors, wrong yarn, wrong everything! Luckily, she had time before her sister’s birthday to knit something new. Thanks to Football Shoulders, Emily L bought her first skein of “fancy” yarn and knit a nice scarf for her sister. What happened to her capelet, you ask? She had no other choice but to frog it and make some great coffee cozies, of course! There was no other option and she NEVER wanted to see that capelet again.

Jupiter Hat is Out of This World

Jessica was looking for a new fun hat and fell in love with the design of Jupiter Hat by Suzanne Strachan. This was only her second hat so she was very excited to get started and FINISH! The pattern used DK weight yarn so she stash dove to find something bulky that she just knew would work. Starting slowly, she managed to get the brim to fit correctly so she sped up her knitting in order to wear it…now! This caused some problems. She misread the pattern and kind of just went with it, blindly knitting based on how she thought it was supposed to look. To her dismay, the fit was, as she put it, awkward. Since she loved the pattern so much, she tried to love it but could not. This hat is now lost in space. It may have a new home as a Goodwill purchase or it could still be in Jess’s closet hanging with the dust bunnies. Or her real bunny! Wherever it is, it will be brought back to life someday as Jess has plans to knit Jupiter Hat again! This time, she will pick the right yarn and follow the pattern closely.

We would love to hear your knitting nightmares and share in the glory with you! We would also like to make up for the nightmare by awarding a skein to the best knitting nightmare story. Why not celebrate the past mishaps by knitting a new flawless project, right? To enter, comment below with your story by Friday, October 31st at 12 PM Eastern. If you have pictures to share, post them to Instagram with #eatsleepknit and #knittingnightmare.

As we hinted in our last post, this quarter we’re doing what we’ve dubbed the Westknits-A-Long! For Q4’s knit-a-long, you can select your favorite Stephen West / Westknits pattern, grab your Eat.Sleep.Knit yarn and cast on!

Rules are pretty simple as always – projects need to be knit between 10/1-12/31 and should be knit entirely in yarn from Eat.Sleep.Knit to be eligible for prizes. Projects should use at least 180 yards of yarn. (We’ve relaxed this last bit due to numerous inquiries.) And, of course, it should be a Stephen West pattern.

Need yarn? We’ve got a special offer for you – place your knit-a-long order between now and October 10th and specify in the comments field which yarn is for your project, and we’ll take 10% off for that yarn. This discount excludes already discounted yarns. Adjustments will have to be made manually so this discount won’t show up at checkout, but we will e-mail you to confirm.

Some answers to burning questions:
Yardage requirement – Most of Stephen’s hats use right around or more than 200 yards so this should not exclude hats, but we’ve relaxed the minimum to 180. If you would prefer to knit two smaller things that total up to 200+ yards, that is also perfectly fine!

Crochet and other modified versions – These are okay as long as they are truly Stephen West and/or okayed by Stephen (such as Crochet Clockwork) as we do want to encourage everyone to support the pattern designers.

Stephen’s patterns are too artsy for me! – We promise, they’re not! You may not want to take part in one of his photoshoots, but a big part of the reason we chose Westknits for this knit-a-long is because of the absolutely huuuuuge range of great patterns he has to offer. Any type of garment or accessory, ranging from basic to textured to wild, there really is, we think, something for everyone. Though participation is 100% voluntary and has no negative impact on your yarnathoning, we urge you to actually look at the patterns (or even look at other completed projects in different colors) before counting yourself out!

Still not feeling it? That’s okay – we may still have something for you! This quarter’s challenge is ALSO a knit-a-long of sorts.

Q4: Stock-a-long Challenge

The holidays are coming up, and we wanted to celebrate something a little dear to our hearts, stockings. Now, specifically, Christmas stockings, they’re a bit of a thing around here. I learned to knit for the sole purpose of recreating the heirloom handknit Christmas stockings my family has had since my sister and I were born, so to me stockings are very special, and without stockings, there would be no Eat.Sleep.Knit!

So, our challenge is this – knit a stocking! A stocking of really any flavor. Obviously the most common are Christmas stockings, but we don’t all celebrate Christmas or particularly want to have a handknit stocking, so this is also the perfect time to try out that amazing colorwork sock pattern you saw, the one that looks so cool but you’d probably never wear it, or certainly never get around to sock number 2 – with this challenge, you don’t have to!

To be eligible, projects should be made with Eat.Sleep.Knit yarn except for minor embellishments (for example in the stocking above the fuzzy beard yarn and black for the face would be considered minor embellishments). They should either be a traditional holiday stocking or a regular adult-sized colorwork sock pattern. For sock patterns to count they should absolutely include some kind of colorwork, kind of the hallmark of the fun of stocking knitting! You do NOT have to knit a whole pair though, just one. Projects can have already been started but should be completed by December 31st!

There are about a bazillion (okay, 1300?) Christmas stocking patterns on Ravelry to get you started, but we also wanted to share some of our other favorite colorwork sock/stocking patterns.

Fireweeds

Flock for Feet

Lucy in the Sky

Mondrian Socks

Neptune High

Nightingale

Starry Starry Night

Viking Ugla

Wallflower

Prizes (The Best Part!)

All participants who complete an eligible knit-a-long project will receive 1000 yards added to their individual yarnathon totals. For the stocking challenge, we’re going for participation! The team that has the largest number of eligible stocking/sock projects at the end of the quarter will receive two additional virtual medalists for the 2014 Yarnathon, your last chance to rack up a few extra points before the winner is declared! And because this is a stocking challenge, we’ll also be awarding some special bonus “stocking stuffer” prizes to our favorites!

For the knit-a-long, there is a limit of one award per person. However, for the challenge, you can complete as many stocking projects as you like and each will count towards your team’s total. All prizes, yardage, and virtual medalists will be awarded after the quarter is over. The yardage will count towards your 2014 total. You will not actually SEE this yardage but you will get any prizes/milestones earned with it and it will count towards your team’s standings!

Submissions

Completed projects, KAL and Challenge, should be submitted to the Google form by December 31st to receive your prizes! Both projects can be submitted here but please submit them separately. Please specify which project you are submitting by checking WestKnits KAL or Stock-a-long Challenge on the the Google form.

Trivia

Trivia will start back up on October 6th. The theme this year is US, your lovely Eat.Sleep.Knit employees! Helpful resources include our Ravelry accounts, all of the ESK social media pages, and interviews with us conducted by our suppliers/dyers. So think hard and good luck! Please refrain from PMing or asking us questions directly, what fun would that be?

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Musings from the ladies at Eat.Sleep.Knit.

Monthly Archives: October 2014

Knitting Nightmares