All the US boxes have completed the race!

The 19th box to arrive:

The Rag Tag Band of Knitters!

I have such a thing for orange.

Do you need a glass of orange juice now? Or maybe one of the new V-8 fusion drinks – I think they are all orange. Deborah also included some Sock Landscape from Knit Picks which I have never tried before. The texture is very smooth and pleasant and the color way (Tropical Sunshine) is certainly aptly named! I am excited to try it out (although its future may not be as a pair of socks). Thank you, Deborah, this is fantastic!

As the 20th and final US box to finish the race (and I understand this poor box was thought to be lost in the bowels of the USPS at one point):

Running Ragged!

How’s that for a beautiful dish rag?

Oh my good golly. Kris sent me Koigu. My very first Koigu (if you can believe that) – a little twist of sky. Darning needles and point protectors (otherwise known as project-keeper-oners) are always welcome. The cats made off with all my point protectors and have started on the row counters – I used to have two and now I have none. Thank you so much, Kris, I really appreciate your thoughtfulness!

These 20 boxes (19 of which are the original boxes – I am very impressed with corrugated cardboard) represent 200 US Knitters who completed their sworn task and moved their team’s box along to Dish Rag Tag Glory. This swap needed no angels, required no threatening emails (from me anyway) and had a 100% success rate. I applaud your follow-through! Without the participation of every single one of you, Dish Rag Tag US would not be a success.

The International boxes are not far behind! They are returning to their Team Captains (who started the boxes at the same time the first US Team Captain received hers). I will be the first to admit that the International Teams were unfairly handicapped in this maiden round of Dish Rag Tag. For one thing, the US postal system appears to rock quite hard. Much harder than I thought they did when I was coming up with ways to ensure a fair race. I have come to the conclusion that Dish Rag Tag won’t really work unless all the competing teams use the same postal system. Which means that next year, I will host a US-only race. Non-US Residents, DO NOT PANIC! If you are interested in hosting a Dish Rag Tag for your country, please contact me to be named Dish Rag Tag Commissioner of that country! The DRT Application, Hosting and Technical Support will be provided happily – the Commissioner will decide on the details of their country’s race (registration cap, team size, prizes, publicity, start dates, etc.).

Just because the US boxes are in, don’t forget that there are still the Individual Merit Awards! Voting will begin on these as soon as our international team boxes return. In the meantime, please email me your hard luck stories, your pictures and your nominations for Miss Congeniality (this one is based on the number of nominations a player receives)!