ESK Yarnathon 2020

A new year means a new yarnathon at Eat.Sleep.Knit.  This year their theme is Once Upon a Yarn.  The teams are Lacy Lions (which I'm on), Triceraknots, Crocodyers, and Fiber Fawns.  The kitties added a new twist this year.  For anyone who wanted to change their team, they had to "pay" with 2 stars. Currently the Fiber Fawns are -15 stars for the team. It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the year.

As in past years, they have KALs (knit-a-longs), Booster Club badges and weekly puzzles to help people earn yardage.  I will be relying on these a lot since I hope to use mostly stash yarn this year. Last year was the first year I did not complete the yarnathon in quite a while. In fact, I cut my yarn purchases in half from the previous year.  Quite a few of this year's Exclusive Fairytale colors are calling to me though. On January 1st I mailed lotto tickets that had been accumulating.  Once that posts, I will have 2000 yards and $200 in credit.

Knit-a-Longs:

• The year-long KAL is a stitch sampler. I am glad that you can mix and match the size of the project you want to do each month, rather than making one huge project. Since they don't need to be seamed, I think I might actually be able to do this one.  Originally, I had thought about knitting a hat with a different stitch each month, but the projects have to be either squares or rectangles.  Erin had mentioned that we could make a project that could go in a picture frame to show off the stitches.  I like the idea of being able to display my knitting in my craft room or throughout the house.
  
• Q1 KAL:  My least favorite since you need to knit a pattern by Tiny Owl Knits. The patterns aren't something I normally would knit.  There is a pattern for knitting chair mats which I may do since our chairs don't have mats. Even better, the pattern is free!
  
• Q2 KAL: Knit a project with at least 20% silk or linen. I'm not a fan of linen, but I definitely have some silk yarn in my stash.  I don't have any projects in mind yet, but I think this one will be fun.
  
• Q3 KAL: Complete a shawl or scarf using beads.  I've wanted to knit something with beads since last year, so this will be a new-to-me knitting technique. I might make the Madrona Lace Scarf (Ravelry link).
  
• Q4 KAL: Knit a project from a book.  My knitting library is overflowing so I should be able to find something fairly easy for this as well.

I started my year off by casting on the Easy Brioche Scarf because I wanted to learn how to knit brioche.  There are two brioche methods:  one using yarnovers and the other knitting from the previous row. This one uses yarnovers and is super easy to memorize.  An extra bonus is that I used stash yarn!