The 2025 KnitPicks Big Sale launched 11/3/2025 and will run through 11/18/2025. There will be so many fun daily deals and promos and I'm excited to track things for our annual archive. (See the bottom of this post for past Big Sale recaps!) I love the Big Sale because I dye a lot of KnitPicks bare yarn in my yarn dyeing tutorials.
I'll update this post as new deals and discounts pop up, so feel free to check back to hear my thoughts!
I am a KnitPicks & WeCrochet (crochet.com) affiliate marketer, so the links in this post are affiliate links and I do earn commissions on sales made through my links. This post was most recently updated 11/3/2025.
2025 KnitPicks Big Sale Bonus Deals
$2, $4, $6 yarn sale, 11/3/2025 - 11/5/25. The 2025 KnitPicks Big Sale launched with hundreds of skeins up to 60% off, but also the fantastic $2/$4/$6 yarn day where select colors of certain bases are signficantly marked down.
Before the Big Sale Launch - in the weeks leading up to the big sale we had some freebies with coupon codes. The Try It interchangable needle set and the colorwork snap bag. (The wooden options needles are my favorite needles in the world!) In the past we would get a lot of freebie with purchase options, so I don't know what else will come this year.
My Big Sale Strategy
I recomend you look at my 2024 post if you want to see me get into the math. But basically, I focus on buying yarn bases I would normally purchase at full price (or at a 15% off discuont with a bulk bare yarn 20 pack) if they are discounted 40% off or more.
Price as Marked Discount
+ Coupon Code (20% off)
+ Coupon Code (25% off)
Bulk Bare Yarn 20 Pack
15%
32%
36.25%
This is basically what I think about whenever I am shopping a sale or have a coupon code. How would a coupon code stack with the bulk bare yarn I puchase?
If I were to buy 20 individual skeins at 40% off, this would be a great deal for me. One downside is that I'm likely to receive 20+ individual skeins versus full bags of 10... but it is worth it to me for the price.
I typically will fill up my cart with the yarn that I want, but I will save some of the items for later in the week in case there is a freebie I want. I've loved collecting free project bags and enamel pins over the years! I tend to purchase hundreds of skeins during the big sale to help stock up for dyeing yarn over the next year, so this gives me the ability to break up my purchases to hopefully get the best deals. Two of the freebies from 2024 (the snap colorwork project bag and try it needle sets) were already offered in the weeks leading up to the big sale for 2025.
What about Black Friday?
The 2025 Big Sale endss on 11/18/2025, so what will happen after that? If we take a look at previous years, historically we get a site wide coupon code. For example, in 2021, 2022, and 2023, KnitPicks had a 25% off coupon for Black Friday and then 20% off coupon for the rest of cyber weekend. In 2024, we got a 30% off coupon! I don't know what will happen in 2025, but I'll update this so we can plan our KnitPicks Black Friday shopping next year!
Big Sale Archive: 2018 - 2024!
I started tracking the big sale way back in 2018, even though I was shopping it even earlier than that. Take a look at some of my favorite deals from past years:
I am a KnitPicks & WeCrochet (crochet.com) affiliate marketer, so the links in this post are affiliate links and I do earn commissions on sales made through my links. This post was most recently updated 11/3/2025.
The ChemKnits Chanukah Special is an annual ChemKnits tradition, one of my favorite things to plan. Every night of Chanukah I release a new yarn dyeing video after sunset at 8:30 PM EST starting December 14, 2025. In the yarn sampler, you can unwrap a miniskein of yarn while you watch how the yarn was dyed in a ChemKnits Tutorials video! Choose between Fingering Weight or DK Weight Samplers for 8 Nights (100 g total) that will include 8 - 10 g miniskeins & one 20 g miniskein to open over the 8 nights. Samplers will ship in mid-November 2024.
Everyone is invited to participate in this Chanukah celebration with me, you don't have to be Jewish. Treat yourself to a delightfully wrapped miniskein sampler complete with a Chanukah card signed by Rebecca from ChemKnits. This unboxing will be an experience! In addition to the 9 miniskeins (8- 10 g, 1 -20 g) all samplers some fun extras, and a hand signed chanukah card from Rebecca.
All of the bonus extras will be either winter, Chanukah, ChemKnits, or Rebecca themed. In 2024, the samplers had a signed card, a sticker, and 4 progress keepers - '24 gelt, a triceratops skeleton ("oil" plus I'm a huge dinosaur lover), a beaker (science), and a snowflake cookie. In the behind the scenes vlog I'll talk more about the extras and what went into the sampler.
Bonus 100 g skein Add Ons
The ChemKnits Chanukah Special goes beyond the 8 nights of Chanukah. There will be at least 3 bonus videos - two mystery full skein add-ons and a behind the scenes vlog. If you buy one of the chanukah mini skein samplers you can add on some full skeins:
Bonus Sparkle Colorway - This stunning shiny yarn is 90% superwash merino / 10% Lurex in a sock weight yarn.
Silky Colorway - 50% Silk / 50% Superwash Merino yarn that is luxurious and soft and drapes like a dream. This second mystery colorway will be avilable on either Sock weight or DK weight yarn.
The colorways for the Sparkle base and the Silky bases will be dfferent. During the preorder phase, you need to purchase 2025 sampler to get the add-ons. This gives priority to the customers who want the miniskeins. If you have already ordered a sampler, you can purchase the add-ons on their own in a separate order. (Due to the volume of Chanukah preorders, I cannot combine shipping separate orders. Thank you for understanding!)
All of the bonus colorways will come wrapped with a progress keeper.
You can find all of the Chanukah listings in the "Chanukah" section of the ChemKnits Creations Etsy Shop.
The 2025 Mystery Halloween Yarn is almost ready to ship! I have dyed up all of the yarn, I just need to film conclusions for the video that will air on Halloween, finish making the progress keepers, and then I'll start shipping out the yarn. This colorway is available on 5 different yarn bases and I cannot wait for you to see how things turned out!
2024 Chanukah Samplers
Want to revisist last year's Chanukah Special? There are some 2024 Chanukah Samplers remaining that are ready to ship - and they are currenty on sale at 30% off! (Please note that If you want to get the add-ons for this year, you must order the 2025 Chanukah Sampler Preorder.)
New Ready-to Ship Yarns!
In addition to the Chanukah Preorders, there are a lot of new ready-to-ship yarns listed in the ChemKnits Creations Shop! We have some mini skein sets, sparkle yarn, BFL, Corriedale, Alpaca/Linen, sock blanks, and more.
If you order ready-to-ship yarn with your Chanukah Sampler, the yarn will ship mid-November when I start shipping Chanukah yarn. If you want the ready-to-ship yarn sooner, please place separate orders. Thank you for understanding!
I cannot believe the 2025 Spring Mini Skein Mini Series starts tonight, Monday 6/2/25. Each night this week at 8:30 PM Eastern Time there will be a new video premiere on the ChemKnits Tutorials YouTube channel featuring the dyeing of different miniskein sets. I will be in the live chat during the premieres to answer questions, react to the videos, and just hang out.
Here are some more details for each of the videos:
All of the SMSMS yarn preorders are now ready-to-ship. I still have some miniskein sets, yarn mops, neon rainbow yarn mops, sock blanks, and bonus full skeins available. I have not updated the listings to let you pick your yarn by the episode number, but if you're hoping for yarn from a particular night I can check and see what yarn bases I have available. Please reach out on Etsy with any questions.
Sock Blanks vs MiniSkeins
I didn't just dye miniskein sets in this year's series, I also dyed sock blanks in each video and chat a lot about the pros and cons of a miniskein set versus a sock blank for similar types of colorways.
I plan (at some point) to bring all of the miniskein and sock blank footage into a longer video where I can talk about dyeing yarn to get the gradient or fade that you want. This will be mostly pros and cons of miniskeins vs sock blanks for smaller projects. You can still dye up sock blanks for larger skeins, but if you're making a sweater or something that needs a lot more yardage it won't all fit on one blank.
I have a few sock blanks left that are ready to ship! (If you want me to unravel the blank for you, please allow a few extra business days.)
ChemKnits Emotes for YouTube Channel Members
If you join to become a channel member on YouTube for $0.99/month you can get access to these fun ChemKnits emotes to use in comments and the live chat. I really wish I could add these emotes as an option here on Patreon, but unfortunately there is not integration between the two platforms. If you're going to pick one platform over the other, I recommend sticking to Patreon. Here is an older post talking about the differences between the two platforms.
If I get 7 more channel members then we open up a slot for another emoji. Let me know if there are any you would like to see and I can start working on a mood board to commission some more emotes. I feel like I use the "No stirring" and "Indy Barking" emotes a lot within my videos, but the ones I use most frequently in comments are the yarn heart, laugh, and facepalm. (At least these are the ones I type out the codes for from memory when I'm in the channel backend!)
It is the end of an era. On Jan 15, 2025, the FDA officially banned Red 3 food coloring for use in food and beverages. I am a yarn dyer who started my journey dyeing yarn with food coloring before expanding into commercial dyes. I often recommend people try dyeing yarn with food coloring before investing in dedicated dyeing equipment so they can see how they feel about the whole process. The Red 3 ban limits the food safe color palette.
Given these changes, I think I'd address a few questions people may have for me as a yarn dyer:
Do I still consider Red 3 to be food safe dye for dyeing yarn? No. Since it is no longer approved for use in food, I will no longer use food colorings containing Red 3 with any pots or utensils I use for food preparation.
This is not a judgement on the ban itself. I am a yarn dyer who uses food coloring to dye yarn versus for cooking. I give recommendations to novice dyers on what dyes (i.e. food safe dyes) I'm comfortable using with cooking pots and pans versus dedicated dyeing equipment. Since Red 3 is no longer approved for food, it is no longer considered food safe and I cannot responsibly continue to use it for dyeing yarn in anything other than dedicated dyeing equipment.
What are the food safe artificial food colorings? Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1, and Blue 2 (uncommon) are currently FDA approved for use in food. While there are other pigments approved for food and beverages as well, these 5 are the ones I've encountered on ingredients lists when buying food coloring to use for dyeing yarn.
Will I still use Red 3 to dye yarn? Yes, although I won't seek it out any more once I run out. I will treat food colorings with Red 3 in them the same as I would any other commercial dye - only using them with dedicated dye equipment that is not used for the preparation of food. The real perk of Red 3 is that it used to be food safe - there are other pink commercial acid dyes out there that have better lightfast properties.
I dye yarn in my kitchen with commercial acid dyes - dyes that are not and have never been food safe. I protect my work surfaces, use dedicated dye equipment and utensils, and clean my work areas to go back to a food kitchen after a day of dyeing. Here is a post where I talk about my favorite tools and equipment for dyeing yarn. I feel comfortable still using Red 3 in my kitchen.
How on earth do you dye yarn with food coloring? Artificial food colorings in the US are in the same class of molecules as acid dyes. So if you combine acid (vinegar or citric acid), heat, and a wool or other animal fiber yarn together, you can create pretty yarn with food coloring. Since those pigments were approved for food versus picked for dyeing textiles, they may not be as light fast as commercial dyes, but I have dyed hundreds of skeins of yarn with food coloring over the years and they are very washfast. Dyeing yarn with food coloring is a great way for a beginner to dabble in the craft, but in the longer term commercial dyes have a bigger range of colors and are more cost effective.
If you plan to sell yarn that you dye, I recommend that you disclose to your customers when yarn is dyed with food coloring versus commercial dyes. This is what I do in the ChemKnits Creations Etsy Shop, I always list the dye type at the top of the listing so my customers can be informed.
Why am I bummed about this ban? I am not bummed that the FDA made a decision for the safety of the public. (Again, I'm not evaluating the science here. The only fact that matters for me is that Red 3 is no longer approved for use in food.) I am only bummed from a food safe color mixing perspective. Red 3 is a bright pink food coloring. The other approved Red in the US, Red 40, is more of a crimson color. You cannot mix bright purples with the deeper red color. Since my perspective on this is with regard to dyeing yarn, versus coloring food, and there are other pink dyes available on the market, overall this isn't a huge deal to me.
I'm also bummed because Red 3 is great to have for color breaking. Color breaking is when you mix one color with multiple pigments and then they separate when you dye the yarn. You can take advantage of this breaking to create stunning colorways.
Dip dyeing to break Wiolton's violet. The Red 3's bind to the yarn first, leaving bright blues at the other end.
Wilton's violet icing color breaking on yarn. Since the Red 3 strikes to yarn much faster, it binds where it was placed and then the Blue 1 spreads out giving these stunning speckles.
What food colorings contain Red 3? The best thing you can do here is to read the ingredients labels. Most individually labeled icing containers (like Wilton's Violet shown below) have the food colorings listed (in this case Red 3 and Blue 1).
4 packs of liquid food coloring from the grocery store (Red, Blue, Yellow, and Green) will have the ingredients on the package, but not always the ingredients of each individual bottle. A deep blue will have some red mixed in with Blue 1 - it may not be red 3, but there will be some reds in there.
When will Red 3 be gone from food coloring? The FDA has given food companies until early 2027 to reformulate their products, although I have a feeling some of these companies will try to release new versions sooner than that. To the best of my knowledge, there hasn't been an immdiate recall of products that contain Red 3 in them.
I predict that more and more companies will start using vegitable juice to color products in the future. I do find it intersting that items can say "vegitable juice color" without stating which vegitables were used... but we'll see how things happen moving forward.
Why am I not commenting on the science behind the Red 3 FDA ban? It does feel strange as a trained scientist with a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmocology to not look into the science behind the Red 3 ban. However, as a content creator and an artist, my opinion on the science itself isn't important. The fact that I care about is the fact that the FDA banned the use of Red 3 in food, and therefore it is no longer considered food safe. Since I have used Red 3 as a food safe dye for years in tutorials, I now have an obligation to share that the facts have changed, and I no longer consider Red 3 to be a food safe dye as it is no longer approved for food by the FDA.
What should I do with my food colorings that have Red 3 and I don't want too use them for food? Dye some yarn! This is a great way to use up the pigments. Here is a livestream I did recently dyeing a lot of yarn with food coloring.
The 2024 ChemKnits Chaunkah Special starts tonight, 12/25/2024, on YouTube! Every night of Chanukah, plus a few nights beyond, a new video will premiere at 8:30 PM Eastern Time on the ChemKnits Tutorials YouTube Channel. The premiere will be like a live television event where we can all watch the video at the same time and react in a chat room. I will be in this chat for as many episodes as I can, so keep an eye out for me! Once the premeier has finished the video will be available on demand just like a regular YouTube video.
For planning purposes, these are the run times of each of the 2024 Chanukah Yarn Dyeing Videos:
Night 1 - 12/25/24 - 47 mim
Night 2 - 12/26/24 - 35 min
Night 3 - 12/27/24 - 40 min
Night 4 - 12/28/24 - 31 min
Night 5 - 12/29/24 - 33 min
Night 6 - 12/30/24 - 47 min
Night 7 - 12/31/24 - 36 min
Night 8 - 1/1/25 - 33 min
Merino/Yak/Silk Bonus Colorway (Night 9) - 1/2/25 - 37 min
Sparkle Bonus Colorway (Night 10) - 1/3/25 - 36 min
Behind the Scenes Vlog - 1/4/25 - 53 min
Typically there is a count down clock that starts at 8:30 PM, so the episode may begin at ~8:02. I cannot wait to hang out with you while we watch these videos!
You can find all of the videos as they are published in the 2024 ChemKnits Chanukah Special Playlist. (The playlist will appear empty until the first video is published.)
There is still some Chanukah yarn available in the ChemKnits Creations Etsy Shop! Miniskein samplers, full skeins from individual nights, and bonus 100g colorways.
For the last three years, I made word cloud tote bags for my kids' teachers as an end of year gift. This is a fantastic collaborative class gift that allows for easy participation for families.
This post contains Amazon affiliate links. I may earn a comission if you make a purchase after clicking on a link.
Sample Email to the Class
Here is the basic email I included to the other parents in my kids' classes. I included some sample word clouds photos so people could see what I was talking about.
We want to put a word cloud on a nice tote bag for each of the teachers. Can you please ask your kids to describe [TEACHER NAMES] and then email [PARENT] the results by [DATE]? Don't worry about full sentences, a list of words and/or phrases is fine.
Making the Word Cloud
As I received emails with descriptions from other families, I made a spreadsheed and copy and pasted the phrases. I made the word cloud on wordart.com for free. You can copy all of the text you have collected and it will import words for you, counting how many times each word appears and elimiting common words. If you want multiple word phrases you will need to adjust those manually. (I try to keep track of any phrases separately.)
For formatting, I set the teacher name to be the largest size and default the angle to "0" so it will be horizontal. The other words will be sized based on how many times they appeared.
You can select any shape you want and customize the fonts that are used in the cloud. (For fonts I used "Headline One" for the name and then "Teen" for the rest of the words. I am including my layout settings for this particular word cloud, but you can play around with them to get something you want.
Under "Style" you can make the backdrop transparent. These word clouds come out adorbale whether you have a more crowded cloud with a lot of words or fewer words.
Last year, I downloaded the free lower resolution version of the file myself and turned it into a cuttable image for my cricut, but this year I paid $10 for 5 high resolution downloads - and I could download a SVG directly. This saved me a LOT of time inporting the image into Cricut design space. With the lower resolution file, any small words didn't import well as an image so I just typed the words out and replaced those area in cricut design space.
Cutting the file
I imported the SVG's into cricut design space and made my hearts 11.5" wide. At first the image looked like a black square - but there is a background border that you can turn off to see the design. I love that the SVG's have each idividual letter so if you accidently misspell something you can edit that before cutting.
I ironed the design onto Navy Cotton Tote bags with my EZPress, but you absolutely could use a regular iron. These tote bags are inexpensive but not cheap feeling and would work well for groceries or books.
I finished up all 5 bags I wanted to create this year in one morning. Why did I pick tote bags? Personally, I feel like I can never have enough tote bags for groceries or quickly packing up extra items to send to school. I love how the word cloud project both personalizes the bags and allows the entire class to contribute. This also doesn't single out any famlies who are unable to contribute since it is a group effort.
Many years ago, I shared a fun end-of-year craft we did for teachers at our Preschool. This was a group project where kids decorated petals for each teacher and then we assembled them into flowers on folders. I adored this project, but as my kids get older it is hard logistically to both distribute and collect items for this kind of collaborative thank you gift.
Do you want to see more of my cricut projects? (As I type this question I realize that I now have comments off on the blog because of the high volume of spam - so I'll try to share some from time to time.)
The ChemKnits Creations Black Friday sale is here! Over 100 ready-to-ship colorways are 25% off plus there are some fun mystery bundles available.
This sale ends 12/2/24 at 11:59 PM EST or while supplies last. Prices are as marked deals are available while supplies last - some deals are more limited than others. Etsy doesn't let you use coupon codes on top of sale items, so check to see which will give you the biggest discount.
Extra Special Black Friday Deals
Buy a 100 g skein of the 2024 Black Friday Colorway and you can add a mystery skein of yarn for just $12! The Mystery skein will be a complete surprise in yarn weight (lace weight - jumbo) and fiber content (all will be at least 50% animal fibers), and either superwash or non superwash. Mystery skeins will be wrapped in tissue paper so you can unwrap the surprise but they do not come with any additional extras. These yarns may come from current shop inventory or could come from unlisted stock. (There is a separate listing for the non-superwash merino/silk yarn dyed in the Black Friday colorway.)
300 g Mystery Yarn Bundle - Buy a drawstring canvas project bag and I will stuff it with 300 g of mystery yarn and fun extras. Full retail value is over $100. You can pick between sock weight (superwash), DK weight (Superwash) or Worsted Weight (non-superwash) but the colorways will be a complete suprise. This isn't intended to be a fade set, so the yarn may or may not coordinate together.
Stitch Marker Bundles - A small organza bag with 6 stitch markers in a susprise mystery bundle. All of the progress keepers have lobster claw clasps that are either silver or gold colored. The charms may overlap with past samplers (SMSMS, Valentine's Day, Chanukah) but will NOT overal with the 2023 Chanukah Sampler extras.
New Chanukah Yarn Options
"Just One Night" Full Skeins - Get a 100 g skein of one of the upcoming 2024 Chanukah Colorways on a sock yarn base! I will wrap the yarn in tissue paper to avoid spoilers, but these do not come with any progress keepers.
Chanukah Yarn Mops - I have a few yarn mops on either sock or DK weight yarn from filming this series, and these are now available to you!
I have edited so many videos in the last week, which means that I can officially list a lot of new rovings and yarn in this shop restock!
Thank you so much for supporting the ChemKnits Creations Etsy Shop and the ChemKnits Tutorials YouTube channel! I hope you decide to buy some yarn to help me make space for more dyeing adventures in 2025.
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