Crafty Pets Photo Contest Winner....and honorable mentions!

Thank you to everyone who entered our Crafty Pets Photo Contest this spring! We were delighted with some many fun & creative entries from our fans! We saw our fair share of adorable pups and helpful cats, but it didn't end there - sheep, fish, rabbits and even a unicorn were represented in the contest entries. To level the playing field, we used the Random Number Generator to pick our grand prize winner, because there were too many amazing entries to pick from.

Our lucky winner is Post #31 by CashmereWishes:

We will be in touch shortly to coordinate the delivery of your prize.

With so many adorable entries, we couldn't resist picking a few more prizes to award - we have 4 Needle & Crochet Gauges with Yarn Cutter to give out as honorable mentions!

Not every company can count fish amongst their fans, but this entry by ForMomCrochet definitely demonstrates a preference for our Royale needles by her fishy friend, Sakura.

On Instagram, this cat wearing a hat posted by @VermontGirlAmy certainly deserves an honorable mention, don't you agree?

It might make knitting difficult, but we definitely admire how Araya50's pup has managed to keep warm through a fairly chilly spring:

Last but certainly not least, Ladybuglantern gets points for creativity with her fun entry featuring a unicorn!

Even though our contest has ended, we hope you'll keep sharing your photos of pets & Knitter's Pride products over on Ravelry and Instagram - we can't get enough of them!

Charity Spotlight: Mother Bear Project

Many of our fans knit or crochet for charity year-round, but the holiday season is an especially great time to remember those less fortunate. There are so many wonderful charities which accept handmade items for donation, and we recently donated Bamboo needles & hooks to the Mother Bear Project, a non-profit dedicated to providing comfort and hope to children affected by HIV/AIDS in emerging nations.

Mother Bear Project believes that the simple act of providing comfort to a child in the form of a bear can have a very large outcome; they have been knitting together people of all generations, abilities and faiths for nearly 12 years to provide bears to children unconditionally across Africa whose lives have been affected by HIV/AIDS.  Founder Amy Berman of Minneapolis, MN recently returned from personally distributing over 2,500 bears in Botswana, Lesotho and South Africa - including the 100,000th bear! This very special bear was chosen to be the milestone bear because it was knit by an inspiring woman who just turned 100 years old.

This holiday season, they are selling handmade bear ornaments which make excellent gifts - no assembly required. The proceeds from just one bear ornament will help ship 6 regular Mother Bears to Africa! Click here to find out how you can win a bear ornament of your very own by posting your Mother Bear project photos on Instagram!

To get involved in this project, you can order a complete knitting or crochet kit (includes pattern, yarn for a bear, and crochet hook or needles) or you can simply order the knit or crochet pattern (flat or seamless) from their website, www.motherbearproject.org.

Make a bear.  Make a Difference.

GIVEAWAY
The folks at Mother Bear Project have generously donated two knitting kits to give away on our blog; to be eligible, simply leave a comment on this blog post telling us about your favorite yarn-related charity & why you'd like to knit a bear with one of these kits! Be sure to also include your Ravelry ID or email address so that we can contact you if you win. We'll randomly select two winning comments to announce on this blog on Friday, December 12. Good luck!

WINNER
Last but not least, it's time to announce the winner for our Nova Platina Interchangeable Starter Set Giveaway! Congratulations to Sleekymom; we will contact you via Ravelry to arrange for the delivery of your prize!

Winners + 2013 Preview

Giveaway Winners

Thanks to everyone who entered this month's blog giveaway, we're so excited to see what inspires you on Pinterest! The following readers have won Knitter's Pride Shawl Pins: MaryGildersleeve, Wenchciara and Zandperl! We have contacted each winner via Ravelry PM to arrange for the delivery of their prize. Congratulations!

Sneak Peek!

We're very pleased to share a small preview of our Spring Collection with you today right here on our blog. Since introducing our line of carbon fiber needles last year, we have had many requests from fans and shop owners for an interchangeable line of Karbonz needles. This year, we'll not only introduce Karbonz Interchangeable Circular needles to the line, but we'll also offer expanded size options for single point, double point and fixed circular Karbonz needles as well as DPN and Interchangeable needle sets.



In fact, we'll be introducing many new & exciting additions to the Knitter's Pride family of products at the Handarbeit + Hobby international trade fair in Cologne, Germany next month which will be appearing at a yarn shop near you this Summer - stay tuned for more details!