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Try Your Hand at Design for Free Yarn, Cool Prizes

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my mountain design contestThe German yarn company Schachenmayr is celebrating the release of its new yarn line in North America with a very cool design contest.

The line is called My Mountain, so the contest is about your personal design mountain, something you’ve always wanted to try but haven’t felt up to the challenge yet.

This is a pretty fast-moving contest, in that you can put in a request to receive free yarn for your design (how cool is that?) between now and August 17 and a photo of your design needs to be emailed by August 30. Fifteen semifinalists will be chosen by Sept. 6 and will be promoted as part of a Facebook contest. It’s not clear (to me, anyway) if all 15 get $150, or just the winner.

In addition, five finalists will each receive an iPad mini, promotion in social media and be featured in an ad on Ravelry. What’s more, everyone who submits a design gets a free T-shirt. That’s a pretty sweet contest.

The one caveat is that designs become the property of Westminster Fibers, so even if you don’t win, you can’t publish your design elsewhere. But it still sounds like a pretty fun design exercise and a cool chance to get to play with some new yarn.

If you decide to take part, I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo via Schachenmayr Yarns.]

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Comments

  1. I have my pattern pretty much finished. I’m wondering where you saw the part that the designs become their property? I didn’t find that anywhere. Are you entering?

Have you read?

Book Review: Magical Woodland Knits

Magical Woodland Knits by Clare Garland is a few years old as I write this, but it’s such a fun book I couldn’t resist sharing it. Step into a magical forest full of realistic woodland creatures including rabbit, deer and squirrel, birds and mice, to name a few.

In all there are 12 creatures, and though they are rather small (the wolf is the largest at 14.5 inches/37 cm tall and 18.5 inches/47 cm long), they are so detailed these are definitely not projects for new knitters. 

One of the smaller projects, for example, is the robin, at 5/5 inches/14 cm long. It calls for nine different kinds of yarn. Sometimes some are held together, while others are worked with on their own. This pattern only includes three pages of instructions, but the print is rather small and in that time there are six different sets of short rows. None of this makes it too difficult for a knitter with experience reading detailed patterns, working short rows and working with multiple strands of yarn at once, but it’s worth knowing going in that even for small projects you’ll need a lot of supplies and time to work on them.

These are also not meant to be children’s toys, as they can include wires and other supports that could be a danger to little ones.

The process photos often look like taxidermy on a tiny scale, with little animal pelts stretched out and tons of stitch markers showing where and how things go together.

The finished animals are so pretty it’s certainly worth the effort to stitch up these creatures. You might be tempted to make all 12 and set up your own forest scene or use them to decorate your Christmas tree. You can check out all the patterns on Ravelry.

Along the way you’ll also find a little folklore about the animals, charming drawings and pretty photos of the finished animals, too. In the back you’ll find some helpful techniques like picking up stitches, making I-cord and working short rows.

About the book: 128 pages, paperback, 12 patterns. Published 2020 by David & Charles. Suggested retail price $24.99.