Holy Exposure, Batman!

Good morning, everyone!  I have been up for four hours or so...not too long by my standards.  So far this morning, I completed a major money project, corresponded with a guy about a purple chair, exercised the dogs to collapsed exhaustion, and wrote an article about knitting.  Here's THAT...

http://www.examiner.com/article/register-now-for-wool-and-company-stitch-n-pitch

So one of the greatest things EVER, knitting-wise, happened this week.  One of the yarn stores participating in the Chicago Yarn Crawl asked if they could use one of my scarf patterns as their exclusive giveaway for their store.  Sounds like no big deal, right?  Well, let me explain the Yarn Crawl to you, then.

Basically, there are 28 local yarn shops in the Chicago area participating in this week-long event.  You go to one store and pick up a passport, and then during the event, every time you go into a local yarn shop, you get your passport stamped.  There are prizes for visiting five stores, ten stores, and fifteen stores, in addition to the route being broken up by region.  Every store is giving away a raffle basket valued at about a hundred bucks.  The event is sponsored by one of the yarn company reps, in conjunction with all of the stores.

Yarn Crawlers are a crazy breed (I can say this with conviction, as I myself will be a Yarn Crawler and can confirm my level of crazy)...they start out the week with a budget, and then of course see that with 28 stores' worth of yarn, there is just too much loveliness to stay within the confines of a pre-stuffed envelope of cash.

So I don't know how many hundreds of knitters there are who pick up a passport for the event (I suppose I could ask Joan, but I try to respect how busy she is), but all of them who stop by one of the stores will be receiving one of my patterns, complete with my contact info.

Meaning all of these people have easy access to subscribe to me at examiner.com, find me on Ravelry or Etsy to view other patterns, send me suggestions and news events related to knitting...

Super-duper win.  Seriously.  I'm honored.

For those of you who humor me and don't knit, I understand where you may be thinking this isn't a very big deal, but this is actually a very, very big deal.  And I can only hope there are no mistakes in the pattern...ha ha ha.

Other than that, I have actually made progress on the kimono sweater.  I'm on the second front, which means when I finish that, I get to attach everything as one giant piece and knit the body.  Woo hoo!  What I like so much about this sweater isn't just the shape of it...there are only two seams to sew.  I hate sewing.

What I hate about it is that...again...it's sixty miles of stockinette stitch.  But it will be worth it in the end.

I'm going to go to Starbucks and dance the afternoon away!