Confirmed!

However shall I choose?

There are too many funny and wonderful options!

I went through every single one of your suggestions and compiled a list of the possibilities.

Then I slept on it.

If you want the real truth, what really happened was that I went upstairs to label vast quantities of yarn while watching Project Runway, and then I fell asleep ten minutes later.  (Don't tell me who won. Seriously.)

But I do think it sounds better to say that I slept on this important decision.

When I woke up, I looked at my list again. Then I started Googling. I had to scratch off the names that I liked that were already taken by other people and books.

Then I bought a bunch of domain names.

Then I added a bunch of ridiculous stuff to this confirmation screen picture to amuse myself while I'm waiting for the coffee.



You wouldn't begrudge an old Yarnista some Photoshop frivolity in the five minutes it takes for the coffee to brew, would you? I promise I will work every waking minute for the rest of the year.

I have it narrowed down to three different concepts.  I will decide between them today! I will! I will!

Now I have to go finish labeling the vast quantity of yarn that is going to be shipped today.

Yarn is usually better when labeled, I've found. People prefer it that way.

I could just continue to sit here blathering on, or I could label yarn. You pick.

That's what I thought, too.

See? Kindred spirits, you and me. 

Soon!

The contest is now closed, and I will make a decision soon, I promise! I am having a great time reading all of these.

In the meantime, here are some yarn pictures to tide you over:

Alpine Spruce:



Greener Pastures:



And Mountain Cathedrals:



February's club picks!

I want to give you this.

So today, I was just



You know, like every other day. Sittin' around. Doing nothing except rocking in the ol' rocking chair and admiring the view.

And I thought to myself, "Self, you oughtta give away a skein of yarn."

And then I answered myself.

I said, "Self, you are correct. I shall see to it at once."



I love it when I listen to myself.


This skein is not just any old skein.  It has magic in it, old magic. Creative magic. The magic of Creativity.

Sometimes the mood strikes me to make something new and different. I often have to ignore my friend Creativity, much to her chagrin.



But sometimes I can't ignore her. She begs and stamps her foot and sticks out her lower lip. She beckons, and I am helpless but to follow.



This is a one of a kind colorway. It is part of a small dye lot, and can never, ever be recreated. I didn't write down the recipe, I didn't follow my usual methods, I just dumped and mixed and tasted until it was right.



Here's what I'm thinking. Sometimes, I will let Creativity have her way. I will make special colorways that have never been seen before and will never be seen again. Colorways like this:



And once in a while, I'll put this never-to-be-seen-again colorways up for sale, just for fun.



This will let me be creative and will let you get something extra special.

I already have about 25 special creative skeins ready to rock. Instock and ready to rock, just the way they should be.

But I want to have a name for these special stockings, so I can say, "Super Duper Creative Yarn Stocking Tomorrow!" or, "Wednesday will be a Special Spectacular Skein Stocking!"

This is where you and the giveaway meet. If you can give me a name that I like for these stockings, I will give you this skein of yarn:



It's Adorn Sock. It will never be seen again after this Awesomely Amazing -- or whatever I end up calling it -- stocking that I'll have in the near future.

Here are some ideas that I have so far:

Serendipity Skeins

Batch of the Day

Yarn du jour

Something along these lines.  You leave a comment with a suggestion. If I pick yours, I'll send you the yarn.

To clarify, this isn't a suggestion for the name of the colorway, you're suggesting a name for the ongoing series of stockings I have planned with one of a kind colorways.

I will take suggestions until 7:30 pm Eastern tomorrow, and will choose something tomorrow evening. Feel free to enter as many times as you like, I need all the help I can get.

Help! Creativity will wait for no woman!

The Michael Phelps of the knitting world.

Which is obviously not me.


But I do have the singular pleasure of being the Yarnista for a team of Knitting Olympics peeps, and I'm sure they have many Michael Phelpses competing with them. Never mind that these are the Winter Olympics and that Michael Phelps is a swimmer. Pretend that I'm painting an appropriate metaphor.

This is what they chose for me to make:



I like it. It's subtle, with butterscotch, gray, white, and brown. It's kettle dyed so the colors are all splotchy throughout the skeins. Splotchiness equals random color distribution when knitting. The lighting in my drying room is less than ideal, and Ms. Olympics was not pleased about being photographed under such circumstances. I assured her that I would take her picture after she was made up so you could see her in her prime.

She only agreed to have her pictures posted here if you all promised -- pinky swear! -- not to judge her by what she looks like right now. Wait until the stage lights are on and the medal is around her neck.



When I first agreed to participate, I didn't know the Olympians would be so enthusiastic. One hundred and twenty five skeins later, these are being wound and labeled as we speak, and will be shipping to the Michael Phelpses of the knitting world later this week.

What shall I call Ms. Olympics on her label? She needs a name.

I have two things to say.

The first is this:



The second thing is to say:

I'm sorry.

I ask you to imagine a stack of papers this tall:

























And on each paper was at least one skein of yarn. Some of the papers had two skeins of yarn, some had twenty. That pile represents 6,000 pieces of paper. Six thousand separate orders. That's how many orders were placed on our site in a three week time period in July and August.

Six thousand.  So I want to say



again.  Thank you for buying yarn from us. I hope you'll love it.



for being patient. It took me a long time to make all of that yarn -- too long. This experience has convinced me that yarn people are some of the nicest people in the world. Most people waited with exceeding patience and then had the kindness to email and say things like (and these quotes are taken directly from emails with the permission of the writer):

"I just want to say THANK YOU SO MUCH for the amazing yarn -- I have never seen anything like it, and it was absolutely worth the wait. THANK YOU THANK YOU!"

"I was doubtful that any yarn could be worth waiting months for, but you have proven me wrong. I am amazed, speechless, really. I will be back again and again."

"Thank you for being the best thing in my week. I can't tell you what this package has meant to me -- you are truly a gifted artist, and I want to thank you for sharing your talent."

I don't share these out of vanity. I share them to applaud you, some of the bestest people in the world. These are the kinds of notes people send us after having waited for so long for their yarn.



I also want to share a couple of things with you. The first is that we made many of you wait a long time for your order, and while you were kind about it, it was still an inconvenience. I want to apologize for any inconvenience we've caused you.  I know this was a sacrifice for some of you, and I don't take that lightly. Thank you.

Next, I want to answer a few questions for you.

Q: Why didn't you know how long it was going to take to make my order?

A: For a couple of reasons. The first reason is that we have a very unsophisticated shopping cart system. We are in the process of upgrading the shopping cart system now to something that has a lot more functionality. The additional functionality also means that it's more complicated from the back end, so it's taking us a little while to get everything done. Our current (unsophisticated) system does not compile orders. It cannot tell me, for example, "Hey, Yarnista, you've had 6,000 orders." Or, "Hey, Yarnista, 7,200 skeins of Georgia Peach have been ordered! ACK!" It wasn't until I began to sit down and print out every order one by one that I was able to count and see how many there were. The printing alone took me dozens of hours over the course of many months. It's a good thing I use recycled paper.

Secondly, having not mass produced any of the colorways that were contest winners, I significantly underestimated how long it would take me to dye them. And not just dye them, dye them and wash them and dry them and wind them and label them and package them and ship them.  It took me much longer than expected to complete all of these tasks. I have no one to blame but myself. I take full responsibility for underestimating this, and if this inconvenienced you in any way, I am so sorry.

I also want you to know how hard I worked on these orders. Not so that you'll feel sorry for me, because I love handpainting yarn. But just so you'll be aware that your order was not lost or misplaced or uncared about. When I say I worked seven days a week, sometimes 14 hours a day, I mean it. When I say I had staff in the studio with me at least six days a week, often working overtime, I mean it.  Please don't think your order was unimportant to us because it took a while to make it. I promise that the opposite was true -- I was and still am deeply committed to customer satisfaction, and I hope that every one of you loved what you received.

Q: What are you doing to make sure this doesn't happen again?

A: Good question. The first thing that we're doing is upgrading the shopping cart system. When this is in place, it's going to allow you to do things like log in and see where we are with your order. Imagine that! (Another feature our current system lacks.) The new shopping cart system will allow us to provide you with an upfront estimate of how long your order will take before you even get to the check out. (This will be made possible by the fact that our new system will actually compile orders!)

We are also increasing the number of retailers that carry our yarn, so you'll have better access to instock items via your LYS or your favorite web retailer. This will mean instant yarn gratification.

Our new system will allow you to choose a shipping method as well. You'll be able to select the cheapest option, expedited shipping via UPS/FedEx, etc. This will also give you more control over your orders.

We're adding two additional staff members in the coming months to help us better keep up with the flow of orders. This will help prevent a log jam from happening again.

We're going to be increasing the amount of instock items we have on hand, just in case you need something right away. You can contact us, and we'll see if we have something we can send immediately.

The good news is that all of the backlog from the Dye for Glory contest has been cleared, and we're now going to be focusing on quickly catching up with the rest of our orders. If you've been waiting for something, you'll be seeing it soon.

We're going to be closing to new orders for just a little bit (except for club members), but we're not going anywhere. We're just getting ready to finish up the shopping cart system, which we'll then test to death to make sure it's as bug free as possible. When we re-open, we're going to be debuting some new colorways and new products.

So,



again lovely, lovely customers and friends. I am so grateful to have you, and so grateful for your support.