Threadknits

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

Be it a celebrity hair-do or a chicken cordon bleu – we are inspired by other people's pieces of art. And art, quite literally, is probably the most inspiring.

Every week, Threadless releases t-shirts designed by new and established artists. When a design makes it big, imitation follows. Sometimes it's the bad kind. Evil people make exact copies and fail to give credit. But give fans a proper and creative way to express their love for a piece of art and something wonderful happens.

Threadcakes entry by Erin Adair

Give them a spatula and they bake a cake. Threadcakes just finished its second successful contest. Bakers of all levels created towering cakes based on t-shirt designs.

Now give them knitting needles and we have ...

The purple woolly mammoth may have started this all. When I saw the tee design by Edward Pincombe, I saw more than a furry animal. I saw a crazy knit hat. I always have been impressed by the crochet hats by "Chelly" that sometimes emulate Threadless designs. I wanted to give it a shot so I first got Edward's permission and then went to work.

And the hat version of Edward's "Woolly Woolly" tee design was born.

Charlie Festa over at Threadless HQ came across a photo of the hat on my flickr. We exchanged a few brainstormy e-mails and before I knew it, this fuzzy purple hat helped inspire a contest. The ball of yarn was passed to Chris Cardinal (the mastermind behind the Threadcakes Web site) and the entries are now rolling in.

Octadecapus by Rachel "Chelly" Thompson

Where is my entry, you might ask? As much as I wanted to be the first knitter on the contest block, Christmas is keeping me busy. But I've started stashing some yarn for at least a couple projects.

First will be Woolly Woolly 2.0. As any artist knows, we often see our shortcomings more than our successes. I think I can do a better Woolly and I'm going to try. This mammoth is going to have a trunk!

Some of the new yarn for Woolly

My next idea is super secret for now and it's an ambitious one, too. But here's a peek at the yarn so far.

Head over to Threadknits site to check out all the rules and creative entries so far. If you're a knitter or crocheter, head over to Threadless and get inspired. If you don't know how to work that yarn yet — well, learn! The deadline has been extended to March 1 so you have plenty of time.