Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the U.S. and those of you celebrating abroad! Continuing the tradition, our Black Friday Surprise Sale is back this year. Shop with Eat.Sleep.Knit online on Friday, November 25th, (that’s tomorrow!) and you’ll get a surprise discount between 10 and 100% off (yes, 100%) of your entire order.

How it works: Starting at 10 AM ET, visit the website (sorry, sale is online-only, the storefront is closed during the sale) and fill up your cart. You’ll go through the checkout process as usual, enter your billing information, and click on “Submit Order.” Your order confirmation page will then display your personal surprise discount and your order total will be adjusted accordingly. All orders will receive a discount of at least 10%, all the way up to 100% (that means your order could be free!). You could win half off, 30% off, 75% off, but no matter what, you will receive at least 10% off, and the odds of getting more are quite good! The sale ends at 5 PM (Eastern US time), and all orders transmitted after that time will be charged at regular prices. Gift certificates are excluded from the sale and will not be available for purchase on the website during this time frame.

10K Club Members! As a special perk to you, our most loyal customers, we will have a one hour “preview” for you before the sale – you’ll be able to shop the sale starting at 9 AM ET. This is only for customers who are in our 10K club (you should have a 10K medallion on your account page if you made it this year, or if you were eligible previous years then you are still in it as well) and any orders placed during this time period will not receive the sale discounts if you are NOT in the 10K club.

Please remember that we do not accept returns on sale yarn, so all orders are final and there are no cancellations or returns once they have begun to be processed or shipped. Due to the popularity of this sale, we can not make any exceptions to this.

Because of the response we are anticipating to this event, and we can not combine orders or offer yarn winding for any yarn sold during the sale.

If you have any questions or concerns, please e-mail us as this is the fastest way to reach us, but bear in mind that due to the volume of orders and e-mail we’ll be receiving, it may take us several hours to get back to you.

Happy shopping, and knitting!
Eat.Sleep.Knit

Just wanted to pop in and let our Canadian friend know that we are monitoring the situation with Canada Post. Unfortunately, we’ve just received notification from USPS that if the strike is still in effect tomorrow at close of business, they will stop accepting mail destined for Canada.

We hope this doesn’t happen, but if nothing has been resolved by the time our carrier picks up tomorrow, we will have to remove Canada as a shipping destination until the strike is over. Fingers crossed.

UPDATE (6/16/11): As of right now, news is indicating that the strike will most likely not be resolved today. We have removed the regular shipping options to Canada from the website as once our carrier comes today, it is unlikely we’ll be able to ship them. However, USPS will still be accepting Global Express Guaranteed mail to Canada during the strike. We have added this as the only shipping option to Canada for the duration of the strike for a flat rate of $68. We realize the cost of this service is extremely high and regret that it is the only one available to our Canadian friends at the moment.

Please know we are thinking good thoughts for a speedy resolution and will restore first class and free shipping options as soon as USPS gives the all clear.

To send Madelinetosh May out with a bang, today we have two Happy Hour specials! Today’s Happy Hour Specials are: Madelinetosh Tosh Lace and Tosh Sock! Reminder: This Happy Hour promotion runs only between 3 PM – 5 PM Eastern time today, May 31st, 2011.

What’s the Happy Hour sale? If you missed it the last two week, Eat.Sleep.Knit is mad for Madelinetosh May! For all of the remaining Tuesdays in May, we will be having a Mad May Tuesday Happy Hour sale from 3 PM – 5 PM Eastern. Each week, we’ll choose one of the fabulous Madelinetosh bases to put on sale, and for two hours you can buy as much as you want and get 15% off the selected sale yarn.

As an added treat, one lucky Mad May Sale shopper will receive a surprise Mad May gift bag in his or her order – this person will be randomly selected so you never know, it could be you!

The fine print: Sale yarn is not returnable; yarn purchased as a part of the sale will not be accepted for return. Due to the volume of orders received during sales, we can not wind yarn or change orders once they have been processed.

Today’s Happy Hour Special is: Madelinetosh Pashmina! Reminder: This Happy Hour promotion runs only between 3 PM – 5 PM Eastern time today, May 24th, 2011.

What’s the Happy Hour sale? If you missed it last week, Eat.Sleep.Knit is mad for Madelinetosh May! For all of the remaining Tuesdays in May, we will be having a Mad May Tuesday Happy Hour sale from 3 PM – 5 PM Eastern. Each week, we’ll choose one of the fabulous Madelinetosh bases to put on sale, and for two hours you can buy as much as you want and get 15% off the selected sale yarn.

As an added treat, one lucky Mad May Sale shopper will receive a surprise Mad May gift bag in his or her order – this person will be randomly selected so you never know, it could be you!

The fine print: Sale yarn is not returnable; yarn purchased as a part of the sale will not be accepted for return. Due to the volume of orders received during sales, we can not wind yarn or change orders once they have been processed.

Since setting our shipping rates in 2007, postal rates for international shipping from the U.S. have increased four times. No one likes paying for shipping, so we continually made changes to allow us to keep our rates the same even as shipping costs rose. The most recent increases in January were steep, and we knew that we could not continue to absorb the entire rate increase without some changes to our shipping policies. We have always strived to provide all of our customers, regardless of country, with the quickest, most affordable shipping methods and have worked very hard to put together a new shipping rate system that is fair for everyone.

Effective Monday, May 23, you’ll see some changes to our shipping policies:

U.S. customers (includes all 50 states as well as U.S. territories)
First-class – all orders weighing less than 11 oz will be eligible to be shipped via this method.
Flat rate of $3 – estimated 3-5 business days

Priority Mail – estimated 2-3 business days
Flat rate of $5 for orders subtotaling less than $75
FREE for orders subtotaling more than $75

Express Mail (new mailing option) – guaranteed 1-2 business days
Actual USPS shipping rate to your zip code from 30082

Canadian & Mexican customers
First-Class International – all orders weighing less than 48 oz will be eligible to be shipped via this method.
Flat rate of $6 for orders subtotaling less than $75
FREE for orders subtotaling more than $75
Estimated 10-21 business days

Priority Mail International
Flat rate of $15
Estimated 6-10 business days

International customers (except Canada & Mexico)
First-Class International – all orders weighing less than 48 oz will be eligible to be shipped via this method.
Estimated 10-21 business days

Priority Mail International – all orders weighing more than 48 oz will ONLY be eligible to ship via this method; orders weighing less can choose between First Class or Priority
Estimated 6-10 business days

Both international shipping methods will be billed the actual USPS rates for shipping to your country from the USA.
Orders subtotaling more than $150 will receive a 50% discount on this rate (the rate you are shown at checkout will include this discount automatically) – basically, we’ll split it with you.
A free 12 oz of shipping is also built into the rates of all international orders over $75 as an incentive for orders between $75-$150.

For all shipping methods except Express Mail, delivery times are an estimate and not a guarantee. We process and ship nearly all orders within 1 business day (often same day) regardless of mail class.

Thanks in advance for your understanding – we will continue to do our best to keep shipping costs as low as possible for every one of you.

Eat.Sleep.Knit is mad for Madelinetosh May! Starting today, for the next three Tuesdays, we will be having a Mad May Tuesday Happy Hour sale from 3 PM – 5 PM Eastern. Each week, we’ll choose one of the fabulous Madelinetosh bases to put on sale, and for two hours you can buy as much as you want and get 15% off the selected sale yarn.

As an added treat, one lucky Mad May Sale shopper will receive a surprise Mad May gift bag in his or her order – this person will be randomly selected so you never know, it could be you!

Today’s Happy Hour Special is: Madelinetosh Tosh Vintage! Reminder: This Happy Hour promotion runs only between 3 PM – 5 PM Eastern time today, May 17th, 2011.

The fine print: Sale yarn is not returnable; yarn purchased as a part of the sale will not be accepted for return. Due to the volume of orders received during sales, we can not wind yarn or change orders once they have been processed.

We’ve been gearing up for warmer weather around the shop lately, and I haven’t really been in the mood to start on a new sweater. But a girl’s still gotta knit, so I fired up Ravelry and queued a handful of free accessory patterns to knit for the shop. And quickly found that I kind of love knitting accessories. So fast! So easy! So delightfully little yarn!

First up was Quest, from Knitty, a lovely little cloche that uses just slightly more than half a skein of Schaefer Miss Priss. Color is Dian Fossey. This hat was so cute that I knit another for myself!

Two nights later, I was back on the hunt for a project, so I cast on for sev[en] circle, which several of our customers had been talking about in the store. This one is a little unusual, so I admit to being skeptical. But guess what? So cute. And very wearable here in Georgia, where the weather is always at odds with one’s desire to wear handknits. I used Madelinetosh Pashmina in Fathom and used about two-thirds of a skein, making this the perfect project for that one skein in the crazy color you had to have but weren’t sure what you’d ever do with.

The mannequin in the picture is also wearing Lisa’s fabulous Wurm hat, another free Ravelry pattern, knit in Claudia Handpainted Yarn Short Sport (color – Antique Jeans, which is on sale right now!).

And last but not least, our experiment with how much project you can get out of just one skein of ShibuiKnits Heichi, the Fern Lace Cowl. We loved how the Heichi knit up and softened and draped after blocking.

And now, believe it or not, I am actually knitting socks. Out of Bugga! To be shown off later.

The Hooray Cardigan, that is. Bringing the blog back to life with a brand new sweater. I found this pattern while browsing on Ravelry and was instantly intrigued by the charming rounded fronts. It makes the whole sweater seem softer and cozier. I worried that it would draw attention to my wide hips, though, so back in the queue it went, until the day Lindsay* showed up to work in a very similar sweater. I had to have it!

And this was a wonderful knit, in no small part because the yarn, Fleece Artist Blue-faced Leicester Aran, is dreamy. It’s squishy and soft and huggable. It slides across the needles and knits up quickly into a sweater you can not wait to wear. And the color! To be honest I’m already scheming to knit another sweater in this yarn; I really enjoyed it that much.

*Do you all know about Lindsay? I blogged about hiring her but the blog died shortly after and ate the post. Lindsay works here, doing most of our shipping and customer service and a lot of other things too. This place would not even function without her! If you’ve ever sent us an e-mail or placed an order, she’s probably helped you out.