Welcome to the Secret Stash Exchange!

Welcome to the Secret Stash Exchange! I’m Holly, one of your admins for this exchange. I’m sure most of you are familiar with the secret pal concept: an anonymous person is sending you goodies, while you in turn send goodies to your pal anonymously. This particular exchange is for spinners, and more specifically, for people who blend their own fibers. For three months (September, October, and November) you’ll send out approximately 3 ounces of your own hand blended fiber along with some small goodies to your pal. Include with the fiber a small description what fibers were used and explain the blending technique used.

Just as a bit of an introduction, I’ve been knitting for nearly 5 years, and spinning for almost 3. I’ve been drum carding since January, but hand carded and combed for a year before that. I love dying and making sparkly, heathered blends. You can find my blog at DriveByKnitting. Reesa, my admin partner will be adding a little introduction soon as well.

At this time, we are limiting the sign up to the first 50 people we receive emails from. We both work full time jobs and wanted to make sure we had a manageable number of participants. We don’t want to exclude anyone, but we’d hate for this to fail due to our own time restraints. The swap will need a few alternates in case a pal doesn’t come through for you or has to drop out at some point. After we reach 50 people, either Reesa or I will email the folks who didn’t get in quite in time to see if they are willing to be an alternate.

Enough blathering from me now! Here’s a rundown of the requirements:

1) Must have a blog (blog, livejournal, wordpress, etc.).
2) Must own or have access to drum carder/hand carders/combs.
3) Participants should send approximately 3 ounces of blended fiber each month for three months.
4) Blends must consist of at least 2 colors or fibers.
5) Each package should also contain small goodies for your pal. ($30 over the three month period)
6) Senders, please notify your pal when you are mailing out a package, so your knows to be looking for it.
7) Receivers, please notify (and thank!) your pal when the package is received. Also, try to post pictures of your goodies to your website so everyone can admire them.
8) If for some reason you are unable to continue your participation, please let us know so we can get an alternate assigned in a timely manner.

Email us at secretstashexchange@gmail.com with the following information:

Name
Address
Web Address
Public Email Address (you’ll receive email from your secret pal here.)
Secret Email Address (you’ll send anonymous emails to your pal from this address. Don’t worry, we won’t tell.)
Are you willing to send out to an international pal?

What tool do you mainly use to blend?

What level do you consider yourself (ie. beginner, intermediate, experienced)?

(This info will help us pair you up with an appropriate partner)

Also, we’d like you to post this questionnaire on your website so your pal can get to know you better:

Questionnaire:

1) When is you birthday?
2) How long have you been spinning?
3) How long have you been blending your fibers?
4) What types of blends do you like to make and spin?
5) What types of fibers do you NOT like? Are you allergic to any kinds of fiber?
6) What are your favorite colors?
7) What are you least favorite colors?
8) What type of yarns do you like to spin? (singles, plied, novelty, fingering, bulky, ect.)
9) What type of blending equipment do you use?
10) What type of wheel or spindle do you spin on?
11) What do you do with your handspun yarn?
12) What are your interests outside of spinning?
13) What types of music do you like?
14) What types of movies do you like?
15) Do you collect anything?
16) What types of candy and snacks do you like and dislike?
17) Do you have any food allergies to common "goodies"? (ie: chocolate, nuts, etc.)

If you have any questions or concerns, please email me (hollysecretstash@gmail.com) or Reesa (reesasecretstash@gmail.com. Also, if you have already received a Ravelry invite, you can join the Secret Stash Exchange group there as well. With all that being said…

Let the Secret Stash Exchange sign ups begin!