The First Little Contest Was So Much Fun...Let's Make It Bigger

We had such a good time hearing your suggestions for naming a new color we decided to venture out and ask for help again but this time in a MUCH bigger way. We have been working on a set of patterns to make a triangular shawl out of 1 hank of Baby Twist (or 5 balls). We have 4 so far and a 5th coming from our favorite lace designer, Sharon Winsauer. We would like to finish out the series with a 6th from you. The details are below. If your favorite local yarn shop doesn't carry Baby Twist just have them give us a call and we'll be happy to help them out. Happy knitting!

To enter the competition:

1. Simply design and make a triangular shawl out of 1 jumbo hank (549 yards) of Baby Twist or 5 50g balls of Baby Twist. If you are using 5 balls, be sure to only use one color. Be sure to write down the design as you go, you’ll need to send it in to enter the competition.
2. The shawls and patterns must be received in our warehouse at 950 S White River Pkwy W Dr, Indianapolis, IN 46221 by June 1st, so please plan accordingly for shipping. If you would like your shawl returned, please enclose a self addressed envelope large enough for the shawl.
3. The winner will receive $250 and a jumbo hank of Baby Twist in the color of his or her choice.
4. The winning shawl and pattern will become property of Alpaca With A Twist as part of a shawl collection. However, the winning designer may sell their pattern themselves as long as it is promoted using Baby Twist and is not available to other yarn manufacturers. Our published pattern will also include the designers name and location.
5. The top 10 entries will all receive a replacement hank of Baby Twist in the color of his or her choice.
6. The winning shawl will be displayed in the new products section at TNNA promoting our single hank shawls.
7. Please be sure to include basic contact information (full name, phone number, address and if applicable, e-mail address) in the same package as your completed (and blocked if desired) shawl and pattern.
   

We look forward to your entry!

And the winner is......

Wow we got a great response for help in naming our new Baby Twist color. The names were all so great I want to go and develop additional green colors just to use more of the names. Key Lime Pie and Spring Green were definitely 2 of the most popular. It was really obvious everyone is ready for spring. My favorite as most of the names were coming in was Honey Dew because several of the new colors already had fruit names but then Victoria Hunemuller from Waterloo, Iowa suggested Pucker Up and I had my winner. Here are some of the other great suggestions: Iguana, Anole Green, Catkin, Sour Grapes, Melon Camp (very cute!), Apple Jacks (this is our warehouse cat), Forsythia, Dandelion, Promise of Spring, Sprout, Yummy Lime Jello, Kiwi, Green Tomato, Green Tea, Bamboo Shoot, and Margarita. This is only a partial list. Thank you to everyone who participated. We have a bigger and better contest coming up so you will have to check back for more information.

Baby Twist 10 packs and 7 new colors

We finally recieved a shipment of Baby Twist 10 packs. The shelves look much better and backorders will ship tomorrow. The exciting news is that in addition to restocking we also received 7 new colors. The colors are pictured on the left. (sorry I took the picture this evening without natural light) With the exception of 1 these are actually colors we had previously used for Punch. The one new color is the bright yellowish green and it needs a name. (it is slightly greener in real life.) We are coming to you for help. Please submit your suggestion of names and the we will send the winning person with the winning name a 10 pack of Baby Twist in this new color. Email us at jennifer@alpacawithatwist.com with your suggestions.

New Colors of Socrates!

So we've had a really big week here at Alpaca With A Twist! On Wednesday, a huge order of Socrates came in and we worked like crazy people trying to get all of the orders out the same day. Luckily for us, our favorite UPS guy ever, Chris, was running late and we were able to process and pack all but three but the time he got there. So you should be getting your backordered Socrates any second now!
But the really exciting news...somewhere hidden in those 26 boxes of sock yarn were 2 new colors, 0409 (Oil Slick) and 0292 (Coco Bean). I got to name these yarns and I'm so excited with how well they go with some of our other colors like 0100 (Natural) 0208 (Khaki) and 0403 (Charcoal). I'd really love to make a men's sweater out of all of these colors in a fun but very manly stitch pattern. (I just need a man I like well enough to knit a sweater for!)

If that's not totally awesome enough, we have also finish a couple more shawls for a series of patterns we are doing that use one jumbo hank of Baby Twist! Stay tuned for some pictures!

Apple Jacks and the Alarm

So I should probably start with a few of the more obvious things you should know. We're in a warehouse. There's a series of really finicky alarms that have laser beams running all over the warehouse that make millions of little beeps throughout the day. And we have cats. Normally the cats are locked in the office at night (in a totally not-cruel way, they have all they need in there including the basic needs of kitties and lots of yarn) so the kitties tripping the alarm isn't really a concern. But this past week, everything changed.

We got a kitty door. At first both kitties, Apple Jacks (or Jacks, or Jack-attack, or don't-eat-that-Jack) and Captain Crunch (or Crunch, or Crunchy, or wittle-baby-kitty-girl) were absolutely terrified of this door. I seriously don't blame Crunch at all for this perfectly rational fear of kitty doors, she's missing one of her back legs and is already fairly imbalanced. But whatever.
But before I explain the sudden need for a kitty door, I have to go back a couple weeks further than that. I was working in the office by myself (Jennifer had a lunch meeting and would be in after a few hours) and I was doing the usual tasks of the morning like picking up whatever the cats had destroyed the overnight and checking voicemails. So mid-voice mail, Apple Jacks jumps over the desk to go smell Crunch or something, and spills my absolutely giant hot tea...all over my lap. So after a minute or two, I figured that since I was alone in the warehouse, it would be no big deal to take off my pants and continue working while my pants dried on a heater. Then I hear the fax machine going in the other room and I go to open the door to leave the office and find that...I've been locked in. The door was a really old and very heavy firedoor that was supposedly "fixed" so that it wouldn't lock anyone in...but here I am, alone in the warehouse, locked in the office with no pants. Great. I called Jennifer, who was still in a meeting. I called her again. Nothing. I start talking to myself like Jack Nicholson the in Shining. I realize that I'm talking to myself like Jack Nicholson in the Shining and then I call the owner of the building to explain to her that I am locked in the office and I have to pee and I'm really hungry. And she's all the way in Noblesville and is obviously no help to me. So she calls Jennifer, who is still in a meeting. I do some filing and then decide to call for help again. It's been about 3 hours at this point before Jennifer turns on her phone after the meeting and gets the eleventy-billion messages both I and the owner of the building left. And then help came. But by then my pants were dry and everything was okay again.

So now that you know the story of the Old Door, I will explain the story of the New Door. The New Door was ordered after the Old Door locked me in and it was discussed that while being locked in the office sucked, it would have been a lot worse had Jennifer been out of town and the phone lines were down and I had locked my Blackberry in the car or other infinitely worse situations, but the Old Door had to go. So New Door came a few days later, and while Jennifer had it specially made to fit the gap where Old Door was, it was still TOO BIG. So we had handy-man Jeff come in and saw the door down to where it needed to be to fit, put the door in and install the Kitty-door, and the cats were terrified. So Jennifer and I spent much of three days shoving cats through the kitty door and tantalising them with treats to get them through the door on their own. And then suddenly, Jacks discovered that he could go through the door on his own and stars would not collide, and the earth would not stop turning, and nothing bad would happen. So he did. A lot. And then the day that he figured the door out, we closed up shop for the night, locked the kitty door and shut the kitties in the office for the night. And then around 8 pm, I get a phone call.

"Uh, Paige, did you lock the kitty door?"

"Yeah...."
"Well the alarms are going off, I'm heading the warehouse."

Rats. Did I seriously forget to lock the kitty door the first day the cats actually figured out how to use it? No, I hadn't forgotten to lock the door. Jacks had tried to go through the kitty door, gotten a paw or something stuck, had a fit of rage/fear/probably a little hunger in there, and broke open the kitty door and was running around the warehouse with the bits of pieces of the kitty door laying on the floor. And then set the alarms off.

Never a dull day or night here at Alpaca With A Twist.

(Cat picture #1: Jacks. Cat Picture #2: Crunch)

First Ever Post

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