Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Welcome!

Sign ups are over at Swap Bot. We're using them to assign your partner, but we'll run things from this blog. What are you waiting for? Go sign up now! Then come back and read all about how it will work.

OK, welcome back. What did you just sign up for? Keep reading...

You can consider this kind of a mini Vegan Pal – It's a magic yarn ball swap – A one shot deal. Signups will run through August with your package arriving on your pal's doorstep by October 31st. (In the mail by October 15th.)

Your package must contain 2 skeins of yarn, with at least one wound into a magic ball (though you're welcome to do both). You also must include a recipe (vegan of course). Try to tie your recipe, yarn, and trinkets into your chosen theme. Maybe even tell a story. Get as creative as you want.

You have a choice between two themes – fall/autumn (hot coco, warm soups/stews, reds, golds, browns, etc...) or Halloween (pumpkin recipes, candy, spiders, witches, orange and black, etc.).

We'll be linking to vegan resources and magic ball resources on the blog to give you ideas.

Also, anyone up for designing a logo? Cass is working on one, but we can always have a gallery.
Update:

For the fine print, I'm stealing liberally from the original Vegan Pal rules:

Think "SecretPal" but vegan.

One need not be vegan to participate!! We're actually hoping that some of you aren't! There are many reasons for this, but the main two are: there aren't that many vegans out there and we want to share vegan products with those of you who are interested and open-minded enough to try something new. Also, there seem to be many knitters who are allergic to animal fibers, and this should be great fun for you all too!

Basic rule: Everything must be vegan and we mean EVERYTHING. For the purposes of this swap, vegan is defined as "no animal products". This includes recycled yarn. To expand, no wool, alpaca, mohair, cashmere, angora, silk, leather, suede, fur, ivory, bone (I hear there are bone needles out there). Did I forget any animal fibers? Let me know! Also, no meat, dairy, eggs, honey, beeswax, lanolin, gelatin (important when shopping for candies), casein, whey, albumen, urea, tallow, lard, confectioner's glaze, carmine or cochineal.

Well, you get the idea. This is a pretty comprehensive list.

If you're a non-vegan, you might be thinking, "What's left?!?", but let me assure you that there is TONS left. For yarns, there's cotton, rayon, bamboo, linen, hemp, banana, corn even!! There's also acrylic, nylon, various "fun" synthetics and then hybrids of 2 or more of these fibers; plus, there seem to be more vegan yarns every day. For foods and snackies, see this page for ideas. Or, better yet, go down to your local health food stores and ask. You'll be amazed what you'll find.

Thanks!
Cass and Ellie

6 comments:

VeganCraftastic said...

Eeeee so excited, I just signed up!

Anonymous said...

Ack - how can I choose between such wonderful themes!

Anonymous said...

wahoo!

Sharon said...

You know.... my birthday is in October ;-) Of course I had to sign up.... I might even have to makesome pumpkin soap for the occasion :-) My Pie recipe has sugar in it, sorry Cass

YowlYY said...

Hi everyone, this is my first ever swap and I am quite excited! Looking forward to put together a nice package...!

Anonymous said...

Awesome, I am signed up! (I'm myaimistrue on ravelry)