2018 Advent Calendars!

I freaking love advent calendars. I always have. Like, I don’t even care if it’s just crummy off-brand chocolate inside. I want 25 silly little gifts. I’m neither ashamed nor sorry. Last year, Jac suggested we make our own advent calendar, mostly as a dying treat for me, and I was ALL IN. We released two tonal kits, and they were so fun to make. One of the things I loved about making them is that it’s a time to really just go nuts with dying. Normally, I have to think about sustainability. Can I recreate this color over and over indefinitely? Can I write a formula for it that someone other than me could replicate reliably? I’m not always here to do the dying myself, so if I introduce a color I have to have a written formula that Jac can follow without me in the room. That’s actually quite difficult. It’s one thing for me to know what I mean in my notes, but a whole other ball of yarn to write notes that someone else can follow. Anyhow, on these, I get to throw that out the window. I can do whatever I want, because these are limited run. I make a certain number of them and that’s it.

Last year, we did a rainbow and a neutral version. I’m a sucker for color and I love the way the rainbow kit turned out the most.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BdjvsVmDru7/?tagged=lattesandllamas

Our 2017 Advent calendars contained 24 mini-skeins and 1 full size skein. We designed them to compliment Ambah O’Brien’s ADVENTurous KAL, which starts annually on the 1st of December. In addition to 500+ grams of limited edition yarn, they contained special gifts along the way like stitch markers, a tape measure, and some of Jac’s specially designed knitting themed stickers. Fun Fact: She doesn’t currently sell those and they are all for me! Bwah ha ha ha! We include them in kits sometimes, or with subscriptions, and I’m basically addicted to sticking them all over everything I have. In my opinion, they were the most special of the treats. They’ll be in this year’s kits too. Which brings me to my exciting news:

Just like last year, they are available in limited quantity and once they are gone, they’re gone. The pre-orders will stay open until October 27th, 2018. All orders placed during the pre-order period will ship by priority mail the week of November 13th, and will be at your door in time to cast on Ambah’s 2018 advent KAL: ADVENTurer KAL on December 1st. Last year’s calendars sold out really quickly, but this year we are guaranteeing their availability through October 27. Orders placed after October 27 will be sold on a first come, first serve basis, and they will remain available until we sell out.

We’ve got two amazing kits this year, that are honestly some of my best dye work.

Royal Jelly is a gorgeous, jewel-tone set, made for the Queen inside you. Deep purples mix with rich golds, accented with dark evergreen, teal, and burgundy.

Solar Flair is a bold and exciting set for those of you that love brights! This set blends electric green with deep charcoal and shots of intense pinks, purples, and blues.

For this year’s calendars, we took all of the feedback we received on last year’s calendars and incorporated it to curate a kit that I think you’re going to love. Each kit includes 25 unique 20g mini-skeins which will arrive individually wrapped so that you can enjoy one each day, or if you’re not into waiting, have a crazy afternoon bingeing on opening your gifts! Both calendars will include six special gifts in addition to your yarn. And if that weren’t enough we’ve got two yarn options for you this year!

You can choose “matte”, which includes 25 mini skeins of our most popular fingering weight yarn: Vacation Yarn.

-or-

You can choose “gloss” which includes 18 mini skeins of Vacation Yarn, and 7 mini skeins of sparkling Coffee Break Yarn, to add just enough luxury and sparkle to kick this kit up to the next level.

Both kits are a fun mix of tonal, variegate, and speckled yarns, designed to perfectly compliment this year’s ADVENTurer KAL pattern. Ambah was kind enough to provide me with an advance copy of the pattern, and I’m knitting up a sample now in the Royal Jelly kit, using gloss for my yarn. It is so amazingly gorgeous and it’s basically KILLING me to not show it to you, but I promised her I would not share even a glimpse before the pattern releases. And I always keep my promises. But I’ve had fun taking daily photos of it, and I’ll post them on Instagram each day in December so that I can play along with everyone else knitting the KAL.

Last year, we got two requests a ton. The first was: “Why can’t I see the yarn before I buy?” Truthfully, I think that’s a little less fun, but we get it. So, if you want to be spoiled, you can see a spoiler photo of both sets on the Lattes & Llamas Yarn Instagram account. We want to avoid spoiling the photo for those of you that would prefer the surprise, so you’ll have to go to the account, and swipe to see the actual spoiler photo. That way, people just scrolling through won’t get spoilers they don’t want.

Follow this link and swipe the photo to see a spoiler of the Royal Jelly Advent Yarn Calendar.

Follow this link and swipe the photo to see a spoiler of the Solar Flair Advent Yarn Calendar.

The second request was: “You’ve sold out, will you add more?” Just like last year, the answer there is no. Part of what makes it possible for me to put such incredible colors on these is that they are limited run. So if you think you are going to want one, get in on it quickly, because after October there is no guarantee of availability.

Finally, for those of you that haven’t been following along this summer, we hosted the first annual Lattes & Llamas Camp Wannaknit! This summer knit along was filled with instagram prompts, pattern releases, and a custom colorway, and because it’s us, a great big give away! As a special thank you to the campers, we raffled off one of this year’s Advent Calendars. So a big congratulations to KnitWit9410 who is about to be the proud owner of their very own 2018 Lattes & Llamas Yarn Advent Calendar. KnitWit, look for a message from me on Ravelry in the next few days with details on how to claim your prize. Congrats!

~Megan-Anne

You deserve this.