New Poll!

Ravelry Group

Are you on Ravelry? If not, well, why not? If you are, hop on over and join the Ram Club group. See you there!

Designer Profile - StitchStud

Charles is a knitter, spinner, crocheter and a podcaster about fibre. He began knitting when he was 10 because he was inspired by his grade school teacher, a group of Colombian male shepherds who knit, and his father, a different kind of renaissance man, but one with a shared vision for creativity. By 20 he was working in a knitting store, had designed and sold about 10 custom sweaters under his own label, and beginning to spin and weave a little. He put it all away for a few years which spanned his master's degree in language education, getting married, having 2 sons, and many other distractions. About three years ago, he started knitting and designing again, primarily for family and to bust his stash of his dated yarn in favour of new ones full of soft merino, and hand-painted colour-ways. A little over a year ago he started blogging at jigraknits and in the summer of 2007 began a podcast called Stitchstud and His Bride (stitchstud.podbean.com). Charles has often bemoaned the scarcity of men's patterns, but has chosen to stop whining and to get involved in the design arena in order to contribute designs for men. He is very excited to be designing for the Unique Sheep and the Ram Club!
Charles' Ravelry name is STITCHSTUD.

Men Knitting in the News

Just saw this article about the popularity of knitting among men. I like the quote at the end that "asking if it's acceptable for men to knit is as antiquated as asking if it's acceptable for women to vote"

All the Cool Kids are Doing It....

I'd like to compile a list of the blogs and websites of all the club members, so if you have signed up for the club and have a blog/website that you would like listed, please leave it in the comments or email it to me at laura@theuniquesheep.com. If you include a short description of your blog/site that would be even better. Thanks!

p.s. this list of links will be made public, so only send them to me if thats okay with you!

Colourway Poll

There will be three colourways in the Ram Club, one for each pair of socks. The surprise factor for the members may not be what everyone wants, because let's face it, we all remember that awful knit gift that we received and, well, the colour was all wrong. Therefore, to address this anxiety of the colours of the yarn you'll receive, we are going to let you vote on ONE of the colourways that will be used. It will not necessarily be the first colourway for the first pattern for socks that you get, but the colourway with the majority vote will appear at some point during the life of the club. The less popular colourways will not be used as runners-up.
Now guys, although we have received knitwear whose colour we don't care for, we've also been on the receiving end of great surprises. We're adventurous, and we like risks. To that end, the other two colourways will remain a surprise in keeping with most yarn clubs out there. Okay the poll...



The patterns shown do not reflect the sock pattern design. They just illustrate how the different colours interact with different proportions. Click to zoom. If you like a colourway but dislike one or two of the colours of the palette, or have a tweak in mind, please write stitchstud at gmail dot com to comment. Thanks for your participation!

Muddy Puddle	Plumb out of Sock	Mucho Mocha	Crisp Evening

Club Details

• Ram Club shipments will arrive every other month for 6 months (3 shipments) beginning in August, 2008
  
• Each shipment has a retail value of over $40, but Ram Club members pay only $30 (paid in advance) or $33 (paid monthly).
• International Customers (Outside of the US): Extra shipping costs of $5 will be added to each shipment.
  
• Registration will be limited and given on a first come-first serve basis and can be purchased on the Unique Sheep website
  

Welcome to the Ram Club

The Ram Club is The Unique Sheep's manly sock club. Right now we are still planning the details, but the dates, price and registration details will be posted soon!