And the winner is...

The Roving Knitter!

On both photos, actually - so, congratulations!  Please contact us to collect your prizes. (For those of you just tuning in, this is the announcement in regards to our May Caption This Photo Contest.)

Now, today's post is being brought to you by Sara M. because Marjorie is swamped with TNNA preparations like, you know, packing her luggage and making arrangements and preparing to wake up at 4:30 am (shudder) to catch a flight.  If you're going to TNNA, you can see her, Darcy, and Sandy at our fabulous booth - designed by our talented graphic/ industrial designer Jenny - #'s 1057 & 1156, located across from the concessions.

Since I don't have any staff projects to share (we're all working on super-secret knits right now, sorry), I have some more gorgeous sneak peeks from our upcoming NEW pattern booklets:

Shibui LUXURY

Shibui SOCKS

Which will be released in early July (SOCKS) and early August (LUXURY).  If you're going to the show, don't miss out on the beautiful samples and photos taken from the booklets on display in our booth.  There will also be kits available, too, at Sample It.

Next, we have your daily dose of cuteness:

Bagheera, the 6-week-old kitten, climbing around a Shibui Bag.  You just can't beat that.  Note: kitten doesn't come with purchase of bag ;)

Lastly, we have another sneak peek (wow, we have a lot of projects in the works here!) of our newest yarn, Heichi:

A 100% silk tweed yarn.  It's listed as DK, by might be better at a light worsted gauge.  We're currently experimenting with the first lot.  This lovely new yarn will be available in store in January (2011) and will feature some excellent pattern support.  But I can say no more.  Prepare to be amazed.

Heichi, incidentally, means "juxtaposition" in Japanese.

Maybe we should have a contest to win some Heichi to play with, huh?  What do you think?  Or would you prefer something different?  Leave your opinion in as a comment and we'll tally the votes!

Incoming!

Wow, a very large shipment of yarn surprised us today (we weren't expecting it until Friday or later...) and so we (mostly Marj) have been scurrying around, trying to get it unloaded and divvied up for our customers with back orders.  But, rest assured, that we now have quite a back stock of Merino Worsted (our 2nd most popular yarn, after Sock):

As well as EVERY SINGLE COLOR of Staccato.  For you knitters who, like myself, have been mourning the recent paucity of Staccato, rejoice in our new overstock!

And since we're kind of overwhelmed by so much yarn, so very early, we're going to distract you from our lack of content today with some more beautiful sneak peeks from our upcoming booklets, Shibui LUXURY and Shibui SOCKS:

Shown above is Elizabeth (the pattern, not the model) from Shibui LUXURY.

Which, incidentally, will be available at Sample It (TNNA Columbus) in THREE colors!

Shown above are the Ainsworth Socks from Shibui SOCKS

Which also will be available at Sample It (in three colors, as well)!

Both photos were taken last week at our super-secret photoshoot location, which we mentioned in April.  Coming next week, we'll post the winners of the Caption This Image contest we posted, again, in April.  Look for it (and some more sneak peeks!) next Wednesday.  Until then, stay shibui!

~ Sara M.