Be Inspired Hand spun wool and mohair yarns for knitting and crocheting sweaters and accessories.

Many of you know that for the past 2 months, I've been training for the Boston Marathon.  A friend of mine from Hong Kong emailed me and let me know that the charity that she ran the NYC marathon for, the Melanoma Foundation of New England, was looking for runners to run and fundraise for the Boston marathon. Right away I called my parents to get their advice. My mom, the other runner in the family, vehemently said you must do it! She had an amazing experience running Boston years ago and her encouragement along with reading up on this great charity won me over. So I'm reaching out to the craft communtiy to help support me in this exciting challenge.

The Melanoma Foundation's main mission is to reduce the incidence of melanoma in the New England region and to target the prevention and early detection of skin cancer. One of the scariest things I've learned since joining the charity team is that melanoma incidents are increasing more than most other cancers and that melanoma is the most common cancer among women aged 25-32. 

My friends and family have helped get me started on my goal of raising $4000 by April 16th, 2012 but I need your help to make it rest of the way!  What better way to get people excited than to do a giveaway on the blog too?!  For donations of $50 I will send you a skein of any of Knit Collage yarn along with a set of size US 17 straight needles (take a peek at the needles below). For donations over $100, I'll send 2 skeins of your choice and the same needles.  100% of your donation will go to charity, we will match your donation with yarn.  

Contributing is simple, all you need to do is visit my funraising page here.  Once you've made a donation please email me confirmation along with the skein of yarn you'd like and your address. My email is amy@knitcollage.com Your support is greatly appreciated.  Please pass this along to anyone you think might be interested in supporting! Also, no amount is too small, even if you don't get the free yarn you'll be contributing to a fantastic charity.

May I suggest Bubblegum Twist from our Gypsy Garden yarn?  A personal fave of mine!

US size 17 needles in Indian pinewood with neon pink painted knit collage logo! Thank you so much!

Last night I was lucky enough to be a part of a Yarn Tasting event at the Rhode Island yarn shop, Unwind. It was a ton of fun! I was blown away by how many of their loyal customers showed up. I think there must have been around 30 people there.  For them that's a small amount! Shocking to me, it was totally crowded.  As a new yarn business owner, it's so encouraging to see such strong knitting communities.  And of course, I loved introducing them to our wacky yarns.  The store is located in East Greenwich, RI and if anyone's interested in learning more about all the awesome things they have going on, click here. Some pics below of all the fun we had.

Gayle, a teacher and knitter extrodinaire and I piling on our Knit Collage accessories!

The owner Jeanne's dog wearing a necklace of Smokey Swirl Pixie Dust!

Everybody hanging out!

Seriously awesome elf-esque hat.  Notice our Mermaid Cafe yarn that's striped throughout this!  This hat was knitted by Emily- her ravelry name is EmilysIsland and she says this pattern is coming soon.  Look her up!

Cute 1 skein cowl in Mermaid Cafe! Adorable.

Susan and I had a fantastic trip out to Phoenix for the January TNNA tradeshow.  I love catching up with the inspiring LYS owner's that sell our yarns and of course all of my knitting buddies.  At this show we had a booth that was double the size of what we normally get.  I loved it, there's no going back to the mini size now!  Our new pattern booklet featuring 1 skein patterns will be launching very soon, so stay tuned! Also very exciting, our yarns will be available in many states where we've never shipped yarn to before like Mississippi, Vermont, and Arizona.  Visit our stockist page for exact shop details.  Some pics of our booth and pretty samples below!

The tablecloths we used are actually shower curtains, I think they worked though!

Yummy Pixie Dust colors in a rainbow!

2 Patterns that are featured in our newest pattern book, the Kitty Kids Hat and our Turban Headband! 

These two samples were serious favorites at the show.  The hat is by Alex Tinsley of Dull Roar, to get the pattern visit her Ravelry page here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/space-case The two colors used here are Rolling Stone Shooting Star (on bottom) and Boho Dance (on the top!).  The cowl also uses the same 2 Rolling Stone colorways.  The cowl pattern is a free pattern on the Knit Culture website, click here for more info.

Susan and I working hard!  She's wearing the Omega sweater by Army of Knitters (pattern & yarn available here) and I'm rocking a long & skinny scarf in Shooting Star.

Last but not least, sharing a Mexican meal with some of my closest knitting buddies!  Heather of Army of Knitters (yes that headband is IN our yarn- love!) and Mindy of Clotheshorse, a fabulous new knitting magazine that is launching very soon.