thought you'd like a peek at this year's goody bag!

However, we're not going to let this hiccup hold up our delivery to you any longer! We are going to start mailing tickets out Monday, February 9th. Since we don't have the actual tickets in hand yet, your tickets will be mailed out with an I.O.U. voucher for the Stitches West Marketplace Admission, if you ordered that with your train tickets.

When you arrive at the station on the morning of the event, visit our "Stitch 'n Ride Answer Table" at Sacramento, or see one of the Capitol Corridor representatives at your boarding station. You'll be able to exchange the I.O.U. Voucher for your Stitches West Admission Ticket at that time.

Thank you for your patience! We look forward to seeing you on board!

Knit for a Cause, and Knit to Win!!
Every year onboard our annual Stitch 'n Ride train, Capitol Corridor gives out door prize tickets for fabulous prizes generously donated by our sponsors. For the second year, we've teamed up with The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society(r) (LLS) to promote knitting for a good cause by hosting a chemo cap drive to provide warm hats for patients currently undergoing chemotherapy.

You can help us with this cause by bringing a finished knit or crocheted chemo cap when you board the Stitch 'n Ride train. With a donated cap, you'll be entered into our on-board drawing for prizes from our fabulous sponsors. You can submit up to three caps in exchange for prize drawing tickets (one ticket per cap); but you can donate as many caps as you'd like!

Hats can be made for either adults or children. And if you don't know where to start, you can click on one of the links below for a chemo cap pattern and guidelines:

* Bev's Country Cottage.com - Many free patterns for adults and kids.

* Knitting Pattern Central - An online directory of free knitting patterns

* Head Huggers - lots of hat patterns

There are many more free patterns available on the internet. We're sure that some of your favorite yarn stores and yarn manufacturers have some ideas. Just type in "free chemo cap pattern" into your favorite web search engine, and you'll see tons of patterns! If you have a pattern of your own creation that you would like to share, please let us know--we would be happy to post it on our blog!

We ask that your chemo caps meet these criteria:

• Handmade by you!


• Brand-new, not worn


• Made of soft yarn, baby yarn works well


• Prefer washable caps


• Prefer caps made of non-wool yarn, because wool can be itchy on bare skin, and some people are allergic to animal fibers.

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team In Training(r) program will collect the donated hats when we arrive in Santa Clara and distribute them to patients currently undergoing chemotherapy treatments in the San Francisco Bay Area. Please join us in crafting for a good cause!

see more puppies

FYI, if you've already ordered your Stitch 'n Ride tickets, please note that the ticket packages won't be mailed out until mid to late January...thanks!

Visit this link to read more and buy your tickets today!

We thought we'd have it all set up by today, but we are still waiting for the official signoff on one element before we can go live with ticket sales. Our target is to have it done by the end of this week! We're anxious to get the ticket sales off the ground too, so when it's ready, we'll be sure to let you know via an e-mail to the knitlist!

Meanwhile, we're very excited to partner again with Team in Training, the fundraising arm of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. The chemo caps were a big hit this year with their many patients!

If you haven't already, please drop by ravelry.com and visit us. We finally started a group for Stitch 'n Ride so you can meet and greet each other even before you hop on board!

Also, as a sneak preview, here's a look at this year's ticket lanyard, in a glorious shade of royal purple!

More to come!

Priscilla

We've gotten a number of e-mails and calls (the bulk of which came in right after the Stitches West class schedule was mailed out!) about Capitol Corridor's upcoming Stitch 'n Ride Knitting Train...yes, the plans are in the works!

Why haven't you heard any details yet? Well, we are diligently working away on chartering the train, setting up our ticketing process, securing sponsors, and getting together all the elements that go into Stitch 'n Ride. There's a lot to do!

That said, we know many of you are anxious to make your plans for the big day, so that you can plan out your yarn acquisition strategy. So, here's what we do know:

Date: Saturday February 28, 2009
Time: Still to be determined, but the morning train will likely leave at around the same time (about 7:30 or 7:45ish). For the return trip, we are trying to arrange the ticketing so that you can leave on a Capitol Corridor train of your choice--more on that to come.
Pricing: Here's some good news--we are not planning to raise the price (even though our regular fares have gone up since then).
Discounts: We love a discount as much as the next knitter, but there will be no discounts for this special train. Since this train is reserved for you (our yarn-lovers), it is not part of our regularly scheduled service, and we have to make sure our chartering and operating costs are covered.
Tickets: We do expect to have tickets for sale beginning December 15, 2008. When we have a "go live" date for that, we'll send it out to our knitlist (so join up if you haven't already) and post the info here as well.

In other news, we recently joined ravelry.com. We're listed under "stitchnride" so come say hello to us there as we navigate our way through the fun.

We're looking forward to the next Stitch 'n Ride, and we're so happy you are too. For now, back to work!

We know you're all wondering if there will be another Stitch 'n Ride Knitting Train in 2009....well, Capitol Corridor is happy to announce that we are now putting the plans in motion to have another fun-filled trip to Stitches West!

We are still working on the details, but the Stitch 'n Ride Train is planned for February 28, 2009. Like last year, we're aiming to have a special, dedicated train down to Santa Clara just for knitters/crocheters.

By popular demand (from your post-event survey responses), we plan to offer multiple return options for trip home from Stitches. Also, we are again working with Stitches West to offer discounted admission tickets to the Marketplace. And, finally, we plan to include a charity element similar to last year, so hopefully you can use up some of your stash.

Tickets? They are not yet available for sale. We do plan to begin offering tickets for sale around December 15th, 2008.

Please stay tuned to our website for more details, or sign up for our KnitList to hear the latest developments! Tell your friends!

I know many were curious to know more about the results of Capitol Corridor's first ever Chemo Cap Drive...[drum roll, please] We collected 370 chemo caps on the Stitch 'n Ride train!

Our team was just overwhelmed with the generosity of our knitting and crocheting passengers. The caps were all lovely, and so many had intricate stitching, beautiful yarns, and happy colors. Thank you to those of you who stuck around to see us hand the caps off to our friends at the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS). Many of you were anxious to get to Stitches, of course, but those who stuck around got to see all the different caps! Kathryn Longtin, an LLS honored patient and Team in Training participant, immediately donned one of colorful caps. Forrest Williams, Board Chair for the Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority was also on hand to give the chemo caps over to LLS. We are sure that the patients who are currently in chemotherapy will be so thrilled to get such lovely hats to keep them warm.

We hope you all enjoyed the goodie bags--thank you to all of our wonderful sponsors, especially Chronicle Books (for the deck 'o' knitting projects), CRAFT Magazine (for the mag with that way-cool knit Caution Tape scarf on the cover) and Team In Training (for the lip balm that came in handy waiting at the windy platform).

An online survey should be coming your way, if you bought tickets for the Stitch 'n Ride train. We'd love to hear back from you about your experience this year.

More to come. I'll write about the results of our chemo cap drive tomorrow.

I wanted to show you my most recent finished object (FO), which is the pink hat you see here. The hat is for an 11-year old girl who was recently diagnosed with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML) and has just started her chemotherapy treatments.

The hat is from a Stitch Diva pattern, but the yarn I used wouldn't felt, so I didn't make the brim. Instead, I added a flower.

My next project will be to knit a chemo cap for our own chemo cap drive that we are holding for this Saturday's Stitch 'n Ride train. Not sure what pattern I will use, but surely I have plenty of yarn in my stash to make several hats. Now I just have to find the time!

I'm sure you have plenty of yarn in your stash too, so I hope you will join our chemo cap drive, and knit or crochet some warmth for someone else! You can knit one ahead of time, or knit one en route to Stitches West. Either way, a knit or crocheted chemo cap is your entry into the much-anticipated prize drawing that we hold on board.

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team in Training folks will be waiting for us in Santa Clara as we offboard the train. We hope to have a train full of caps to hand over to them!

See you soon!

• Bev's Country Cottage.com - Many free patterns for adults and kids.


• Knitting Pattern Central - An online directory of free knitting patterns

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team In Training(r) program will collect the donated hats when we arrive in Santa Clara and distribute them to patients currently undergoing chemotherapy treatments in the San Francisco Bay Area. Please join us in crafting for a good cause!

Leukemia & Lymphoma Society "honored patient" Lea Morrison

Here's an update from an LLS "honored patient" Lea Morrison. Lea was diagnosed with Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML) after a routine doctor's visit in January 2006. She and her family recently moved to Seattle to undergo a stem cell transplant. She keeps a regular journal of her progress on the CaringBridge website. This recent excerpt gives true meaning to our chemo cap knitting drive...

"It has been a VERY good week since I last updated! I am feeling well and saw the team of doctors on Monday and everything seems to be going in the right direction. Day #50 marks the halfway point post-transplant until we hopefully get to return home to San Francisco. The doctors put me back on the pill form of prednisone and we are *trying* to start a slow taper again and hopefully the graft vs. host disease will behave itself as we lower the dose. Many people after transplant are on prednisone for YEARS so I need to be patient. My mom is here and she has been such a help, comfort, and companion. She has been a true caregiver in every sense of the word.. I have attached a photo that shows how truly bald I am. I probably won't even START to grow hair for a bunch of months - a reminder of the high doses of chemo I received and how truly toxic it is!"

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is the world's largest voluntary health organization dedicated to funding blood cancer research, education and patient services; visit http://www.lls.org for more information.

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team In Training(r) (TNT) is the world's largest endurance sports training program. For the past 20 years, TNT has trained people to run or walk full and half marathons or participate in triathlons and century (100-mile) bike rides. To learn more about Team In Training, visit teamintraining.org.

Tickets are now on sale for our annual Stitch 'n Ride train to Stitches West 2008. To purchase your tickets, please click on the link above. Special tickets are required to board and be part of the Stitch 'n Ride festivities.