Put on your astronaut suit and come along with us while we remember the 2016 Yarnathon: A Space Race. We will visit each planet in our Yarniverse to show off KAL projects, say hello to the new friends we made, and share our favorite moments from this amazing year.

As always, we can’t thank you enough for being you and doing what you do. Eat.Sleep.Knit. would be nothing without it’s creative, funny, supportive, and kind group of customers & friends. The outpouring of love that we receive throughout the year makes all that we do worth it.

Let’s begin at The Sun and remember all the awesome exclusive space yarn that was released at the beginning of the year. From Set Phasers to Stun by Western Sky Knits to Vader by BMFA to Put a Ring On It by Three Irish Girls, our dyers truly impressed us with their interpretations of space. You all also rang in the New Year with a quick KAL – Spiral Cowl by Keri McKiernan. To see some of your friend’s cowl, click here!

Mercury brought a fantastic new dyer, Nerd Girl Yarns, the Starfighter Hat designed by our very own Tracey, and the beginning of the enormously beautiful Carson Throw by Romi Hill. You all filled up your carts with colorways like Dirigible Sunrise & Blue Exploding Box. The Starfighter Hat was a quick knit and looked amazing in the exclusives you all chose. See some here.

You all were so excited to start the massive Carson Throw. Some picked kits we created while others went solo with color choices but, either, way, those first rounds flew by! As for the rest of the throw, things got…interesting as we progressed.

Since women are from Venus, let’s talk about the wild woman who turned 1 this year, Molly McBride. She’s cute as a button but has the fear level of Evil Knievel. This little one has taken Erin & Dan to the Urgent Care many times this year but who could be mad at that face? She’s just…curious and cute and we can’t get enough!

Earth – home sweet home. There is no better place to wrap up in a beautiful space shawl like the ones you all knit during March and April. We chose the Astronomy Shawl Collection by verybusymonkey and 2 crochet options: Half Moon Shawl & Galaxy. Whether you chose to use multiple colorways like pixielith’s Saturn Rings Shawl, an ombre like TBishop0513’s Half Moon Shawl , or something solid like maayanplaut’s Meteor Shower Shawl, you now have a cozy shawl to remind you of your year in space with all of your ESK friends!

As the book says, men are from Mars so can we all please notice what a sweet gentleman Levi has become. As a very smart 3 year old, he absolutely adores Molly, loves following directions at Pre-school, and wants to build beeboop’s like Dad. He’s a gentle guy who likes sprinkles on his toast so you know he’s a Walker. How did he go from crawling around the shop to “reading” a magazine while waiting in the drop off line at school.  

Let’s jump right in to Jupiter and show of some of the amazing space socks you all made. For this KAL, you could knit any sock pattern but you had to use one of our exclusive space colorways.

The best part of exclusives is that we have no clue what they look like knit up until we see your projects so this was a really fun KAL for us. Check out some space socks here.

We were so excited to team up with Alicia Plummer to host the Staring at Stars KAL. Alicia designed a raglan cardigan for you all to wear while stargazing in the crisp evening air. The suggested yarn was WSK Willow DK in Deep Space but here is one of our favorites who went in another great direction, celaine420’s Staring at Stripes.

For the planet that shall not be named, let’s remember learning or refreshing our minds on the star stitch. You gathered those loops to make a pretty stitch that represents those twinkles in the sky. Some of you made shawls, some went big with sweaters, but everyone shined in this KAL. Alicia07 will definitely shine in her perfectly fitting Isidro knit in Tosh Sock! 

Neptune is technically the last planet, but nobody ever said ESK follows ALL the rules! It’s time we show of some of those Carson Throws that you all spent so much time and effort completing. This was truly a major feat for a lot of you, including the kitties. We chose this KAL because we all wanted to knit an incredible huge blanket but never had the motivation. Well, just call us motivators because SO MANY of you finished your throws this year. Admire them here.

For the true last planet, little Pluto, we would really like to share the love! We mentioned earlier that we would be nothing without you guys and we truly mean that. Without you, there would be no excitement, no friendships, no growth, no yarn drooling, no project help, no support when life gets real, no sharing of funny stories..so many things would be missing. Without you, we’d be just another online yarn store. But somehow, we found each other and it’s so awesome. So, from all the ESK kitties, thank you for a tremendous year and we look forward to another sweet year! Make sure to visit our Yarnathon homepage on January 1st, 2017 to see what fun things we have planned for the next 365 days.