You have until 6:00pm MST tonight to donate and get your name into the pot for the awesome swag. There is one final prize going in the pot thanks to Claudia from Heal My Hands. This gift pack:

You will be able to create your own gift pack at the website. Thanks so much Claudia! So that goes along with the two $50.00 gift certificates to Scout’s Swag and the skin of the exclusive colorway Rowing Home. I will announce the total raised for our girl Pippi and the winners tomorrow. Here’s the link again for anyone who wants to still get in. Remember, for each $5.00 you put in, your name goes in that many times.

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I can’t even being to thank everyone for the amazing donations that have come in. (click here if you haven’t read this post yet) I will announce the final total tomorrow or Sunday once I add it all up. But the amount so far is incredible. Pippi hasn’t killed me yet because she can’t quite pick her mouth up off of the ground since I told her how much has been raised so far.

I decided to add in one more prize. It’s VERY special because it’s one of the sock club skeins that are exclusive to the members in the sock club for at least 6 months. But because I love Pippi I am putting one of these into the pot. So two people will get $50.00 gift certificates to my shop - Scout’s Swag and one person will win this skein of yarn. It was collaborated with a club member and based off of this painting called Rowing Home by Winslow Homer.

(And yes I know that club members have skeins that vary from this!

All hand dyed yarn will vary from batch to batch.

However, once this is up in the shop it will look more like this one)

So please keep spreading the word. You have until tomorrow night at 6:00pmMST to get your donations in. And remember, for every $5.00 you donate you get your name tossed into the pool! Email your friends, post on your blog, talk it up in Ravelry. Pretty please? With a sugary cosmo on top?

Happy Friday my friends. Thank you all again so much for those of you who have already donated! Just click below to donate if you would like to get into the raffle. Amy has also put up some more auctions so check those out too!

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Well either way, how about entering a little raffle up here in Scout’s Swag? It’s pretty easy. Let me tell you a little about a really amazing woman. Most of you know her. You know, the one who creates things like this?

Do you know who I am talking about? That would be my friend Symeon aka Pippi of PippiKneeSocks. And as Amy Boogie wrote, “Symeon North is going to kill me but I’m going to do this anyway.” I’m just putting another hand up there as someone who she might kill. Oh well. We do things for the people we love and care about right? That would be Symeon. I have known Symeon for a very long time. So long in fact, I don’t even know when we met online. I think it was at HipMama? Anyway, over the years she has always been there to help me when I’ve needed it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve emailed her or even called her to ask her simple questions about dyeing/knitting/etc. She’s always been there to help. She’s also helped other people when they have been down and out. Now it’s our turn to help her.

I am not going to go into the details or she really might kill me. All I will say is that this mama can’t catch a break right now and is going through some extremely hard times. I want to help. I hope you will too. Here’s what I am going to do. I am going to hold a raffle to help raise money for her. It starts as soon as I put this post up and will end on Saturday evening at 6:00pm. I really hope we can raise enough money to really make a difference in her life right now. And to those of you who think, “But there are many people who need help why should I give her my money?” You don’t have to. If you can? Do it. It’s as easy as that.

What I am going to do is randomly pick not one, but two names out of all of the people who donate to receive a $50.00 gift certificate to Scout’s Swag. It can go towards anything. You can even pick two skeins of yarn I can dye for you if you would like. Whatever you want. What I will do is enter each name in and for every $5.00 you donate you get your name in that many times. If you donate $20.00 you get 4 chances. Sounds pretty good to me! And we all know that every little bit counts so even if you donate $5.00 it’s appreciated. Heck that’s a gallon of gas!

To keep it organized on my end and be able to keep track of who is donating what, I have created a Paypal button for this raffle to make it easy for you to just click and donate. (I’m having a problem getting the button to show but I think the link works so just click below for now!)

I just want to say that I know how much the fiber community always rallies together to help a friend in need. Please spread the word if you can. Tell people to come and help our friend out. Post about on your blogs. Post about it on Ravelry. Get people over here okay? Amy is also doing some great auctions you can take part in as well. I don’t care where you donate as long as it gets to her somehow. I might only be alive until she finds me so let’s hurry up and do this. Okay? I thank you ALL in advance. I know I can count on you and you and you and YOU!xoxo

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Just wanted to say hey before I pass out from jet-lag. Those of you who told me it’s harder coming back weren’t kidding. T. and I both fell asleep watching TV with the kids last night around 7:45pm. I can feel sleep coming on soon. But the trip was amazing although I am overwhelmed with the 2500+ shots I have to go through. Yeah….lots of pictures. It’s hard not to take pictures when around every corner you see something like this:

or this

or this!

Okay so you get the point. I have more in that flickr set if you want to see them. I haven’t had time to process too many of them but it’s a start. We saw so much while we were there. Rome, Florence, Perugia, Assisi, Todi, Orvieto, Narni, Tivoli to name a few. It was a busy 12 days. The kids did great with the babysitter and Supergirl only got upset two days before we were to come home. Otherwise everything was great. I will tell you that it was nice to sleep in my own bed on Sunday night! (and not worry about wood scorpions!!) Oh and I even knit on the plane. That’s a story I will save for the next time. Let’s just say a woman grabbed my knitting to show me how to knit and completely messed it UP!!!

Not much other news to report. I mailed out everything today that was bought while I was gone. I will be restocking the shop and putting up the new Namaste bags within the next few days. Their new swag is seriously cool! I am still not taking yarn orders until after June 1st so I can catch up with life/work/sleep! Some of you know this by now but I’m also traveling to San Francisco in June to teach a dye class at knit one one. It might already be filled. I’m not sure. I am so excited because I get to meet some people who have been my biggest supporters over the past few years. I get to hang out with Stephen and Mike too! So check it out if you live anywhere near the studio and want to learn how I do my thang. Should be a really fun time. (if there are spots left) This is something I might be doing over the next year so stay tuned. I need to go back east this summer and might see if I can fit in a class in NY or NJ while I am there. We’ll see. Put your requests in!

Um. Jet-lag has hit and I can’t remember what else I wanted to talk about. Um. Ummmmmmm. I guess that’s it for now before I fall asleep on the keyboard. Hope to catch up with everyone soon!

****Check out the new Namaste Bags & Accessories! They are seriously cool!***

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