Hester embroiders!

Puritans are explained!

My new site is nearly done!

AND MSW UPDATE: After Party that Guido (It'sAPurlMan) and Alanna (TactileTravel) and Jess (Ravelry) have put together—It's Saturday night in Columbia and we'll have food and some door prizes and hopefully a ton of fun. There's more info at http://tactileafterparty.com.

Interweave ROCKS–Go there NOW!!!

Interweave is celebrating Earth Day by offering two free digital issues of the most current Quilting Arts and Cloth Paper Scissors magazines for a limited time.

Digital subscriptions are great for the eco-conscious who are trying to save paper (or who are going paperless to stay organized and clutter-free)! And we love them because you can see the artwork in better detail; zoom in and out to better read the text; click on ads and go right to the website for more information; search your issues for specific articles; and so much more!

Have you taken a look at one? For one week only (until 4/29/09) you can view the entire digital edition of the Quilting Arts April/May 2009 issue and Cloth Paper Scissors May/June 2009 issue. These magazines have a regular newsstand value of $7.99 each!

INSIDE THE ISSUES

The 2009 Craftlit Challenge!

…for the first ever The March Hare loves CraftLit Design Contest!

We have dyed up a brand new colorway for our very special 70/30 wool/silk blend in a very special CraftLit colorway…a very rich, earthy, semisolid scarlet. Just what every self-righteous Puritan would choose to brand one who strays. We have of course named it The Scarlet Letter.

TSL Yarn

Such a yarn of course demands a fantastic design. That's where we're hoping CraftLit's endlessly talented and creative listeners can help us. We'd like to challenge you to design something for the yarn inspired by the novel, the times, the characters. We'll have a fantastic panel of celebrity judges pick the winner, who will receive the project's worth of yarn.

The details:

1) All entries should be designed with The Scarlet Letter yarn in mind (not necessarily in hand). Yarn specs:435 yards per cake. 70/30 merino wool/silk. True fingering weight: 4 ply with 14 wpi. 2) Knitting, crochet, weaving, tatting, macramé, nalbinding…if you can do it with yarn it's fair game. 3) Entries must be in before the last chapter is posted to the CraftLit feed. 4) All designs must somehow incorporate "the letter" or an interpretation thereof. 5) To be eligible for the prize, the winning designer must agree to have their pattern available for free via the CraftLit website for 3 months after the conclusion of the contest. After that time all rights are retained in full by the designer and the free feed will be removed, pronto. 6) Entries should at a minimum include pictures of the final product and the complete pattern. Everything else we leave up to you. Let your imaginations run wild!

And to sweeten the pot, The March Hare will donate 10% of the proceeds from the sales of The Scarlet Letter yarn to CraftLit for the duration of the contest. (Including the 3 month free pattern period for those inspired by the winning project…)

So there you be CraftLit faithful. Go forth and create!