Sign up to be part of the second KnitWits Raffle in support of booksellers!

If it's before August 31 of 2025, great! Sign up here to be a participating crafter for the KnitWits Raffle 2025. If it is after this date, and you know in your bones that you can meet the deliverable date for your item, shoot us an email or reach out via the Contact Us form and we'll discuss. Otherwise, your best way to support the KnitWits Raffle and BINC is to wait for the raffle to go live, buy some raffle tickets, and share information about the raffle with your community and on social media!

We know the book community is vast! For this event, since it's only two of us running things out of our apartments, we're trying to keep it manageable with a smaller group of contributers and so we're sticking with people in the field in which we work. This means authors, book illustrators/artists, agents, editors, marketers, publicists, booksellers, bookstore owners, and anyone who earns their living in a way that publishes books and takes them to market. 

In future years, we may expand to include more of the book world's incredibly talented crafters who read and review! No matter what, we appreciate your interest and would be grateful for your support when the raffle goes live. You can sign up on the homepage to get an email reminder when the KnitWits Raffle 2025 goes up if you'd like to buy raffle tickets for handmade items. And if you're feeling generous, it would be fantastic if you'd spread the word about the raffle when it goes live in November.

That's totally up to you, as long as you can get it finished and to KnitWits HQ in NYC by November 5th, 2025! Think about what kind of beautiful or fun/funny items that people would be interested in spending money to purchase and that might help you decide. Also, while we're raising money for booksellers, your item does not have to be book-focused in any way unless you want it to be.

We are fiber craft inclusive, so give us your knits, crocheted items, cross-stitching, embroidery, quilting, sewing, weaving, and any other creative fiber project! The name "KnitWits" was simply too good to pass up.

Ideally, your item will be finished by the end of October. We need your completed item in our hands in NYC by November 5th, 2025, so we have time to photograph it and get the listing ready to go. We'll send you a shipping label via email if you need one. If you live in the five boroughs, we can arrange pick ups or drop offs.

We completely understand that you have a busy schedule and crafting is not only a labor of love, but a definite time commitment. However, if you have doubts that you will be able to finish making an item, then we suggest that you don't make the commitment to contribute an item this time around. You can always support the KnitWits Raffle by buying raffle tickets when it goes live in November. (Or you could keep an eye out and sign up for contributing something the next year!)

We are asking every participant to write up an approximately 50 word item description by the time they submit their item to us. Every crafter can personalize their raffle description to include relevant information such as brief info about you, the type of fiber used, how long it took you to make it, washing instructions, and so on. Include anything you think someone might want to know and then some fun. Here are examples: 

- Cristin, who is a Book Buyer at the Strand in New York City, made this baby sweater over the course of 15 hours using HiKoo CoBaSi DK yarn (cotton, bamboo, silk, elastic) and a pattern she made up. It was made in a home with a cat. Hand wash and lay flat to dry. 

- Alana is a Marketing Director and the head of content at BookHighlight in NYC. She knit this lap blanket (30”x35”, 100% merino wool) in 12 hours while listening to Veronica Speedwell mystery audiobooks. (No guarantees that the baby will become a witty lepidopterist.) Made in a home with a cat. Washing machine safe on delicate/cold, lay flat to dry. 

- Michelle, who is a New York Times bestselling author and former First Lady of the United States of America, knit this hat using local handspun cashmerino. Made in a home with a dog. Hand wash and lay flat to dry. (Alas, we wish we knew Michelle because she *is* a knitter—but if you’ve got an in, tell her we’d be delighted to raffle anything she made!)

If you're not comfortable with social media, you don't have to do anything! But if you are willing to share things on social, we'd appreciate if you teased your project as you made it throughout the summer and fall. We will be using the #KnitWitsRaffle hashtag and we have social media accounts on Instagram, Twitter, and Threads that you can tag. Once we receive items and get things photographed, we'll also be providing participants with some social media graphics that you are free to use to promote the raffle when it goes live.

The base cost for one raffle ticket is $5. We'll be using the RaffleCreator platform to run the raffle itself and so there may be discounts if you buy lots of raffle tickets. 

People will be able to purchase raffle tickets and indicate what projects they would specifically love to win (just in case your mom / friend / dentist specifically wants something YOU created), but hopefully they'd be open to receiving any item!

The raffle will close up in early December and winners will be selected at that time. We will do everything in our power to get packages sent off to the winners' US-based addresses so that they are in-hand by 12/20. Because the USPS receives a high volume of packages at this time, it is possible that some items may be delayed, but it is our hope that winners will receive their packages by 12/20.

For this raffle and because international mailing can be unpredictable, we're sticking with US based crafters and purchasers with US delivery addresses only.

We are in the book business and so we have incredible love and respect for booksellers. That means BINC is a charity near and dear to our hearts. BINC supports booksellers in tangible and immediate ways year-round and you can learn more about them here.