Showing posts with label 2014 winter Olympics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2014 winter Olympics. Show all posts

Team USA Hat Drive Wrap-up!

by : KristenJBW
Hi everyone!

So, I am sure many of you have been dying to know the final outcome of the Team USA Hat drive! We received our last few hats shortly after the new year and set about to sorting and counting them. All in all we received about 285 hats from generous knitter's across the country.

As we received hats, we posted photos throughout the process on Facebook. In case you missed some of those, check out the album we created there. It shows of many of the beautiful hats we received!

Here are some of those awesome hats, up close! We received so many, we began collecting them in large boxes until we could sort them all and prepare them for shipping. So many extremely creative hats were sent! We loved seen them all!



Some of them arrived with cute tags attached and special messages to the athletes! We loved reading each of these as they arrived!



Some of us couldn't resist trying on some of the hats...you know, just so we knew they would fit. :)




Some hats were knit and crocheted by our local retail customers and were hand delivered. When we could, we asked them to proudly pose with their hats. :)



Erika, who handles all of our returns as well as opens the mail each day, often was the first to see the hats as they came in. She loved getting to be the first one to see and feel them!


Once we had received all of the hats and tallied them up, we decided to take a few group photos in the yarn hot tub just before we shipped them off to the USSA! We all had a great time posing with the fantastic hats you all made!



Once we receive some photos back from the USSA of all of these lovely hats on some athletes, we'll be sure to post more photos. In the meantime, thank you so much for all of your hard work. We know the athletes are going to love receiving the hats you made. We also hope you've enjoyed seeing your hats on the blog!

Happy knitting and crocheting!
Kristen 
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Go Team USA!!!

by : KristenJBW
Some of you may have already heard about our hat drive in our latest newsletter, but I thought I would cover all of the basis and post about it on the blog too. Plus we have some really fun photos to share. :)




The 2014 Winter Olympics will be here before we know it - and we are getting a head start on keeping our athletes warm (pun intended!). What are we up to this time, you ask? Well, we've set a goal of gifting every single Sochi-bound athlete (and their families) with a cozy and patriotic handmade hat, compliments of the yarn industry (after all, what goes better with winter sports than hand-knitted hats?). As you can see from the photo, we've finished one... just a few hundred to go! Want to join us in our hat drive? Here's the skinny:


1. Each hat must be made in red, white, and blue. (The hats are going to the U.S. Teams)

2. Crafters choice: hats can be knit or crocheted. Any size needle, any type of fiber. 

3. JBW will be the collection point for the hats. (I.e., mail your finished hat to us at 1312 Capital Blvd #103, Reno, NV 89502.)

 4. All hats must be delivered to JBW by January 1st.

 5. JBW will deliver all of the collected hats to the various U.S. Teams!

 6. Our goal is to deliver thousands of hats, so as to keep all of the athletes - and their families - warm!
Americana colorway
For those of you that don't already have red, white, and blue yarn at home
- and/or don't know what pattern to use - we've created this Team USA Hat Kit which includes three balls of Schachenmayr Original Boston yarn in the quintessential patriotic trio of Red, White and Blue. There is the bright option, shown here which ships on 10/28, and also an "Americana" option that we added this week because the bright option was so popular and we wanted another color option to offer you. The kit also comes with an exclusive hat design straight from our latest book, Stitch Mountain, which is debuting this December (we modified the pattern slightly by doing it in stripes instead of a solid color... as modeled here by future Olympic athlete, Huck. Aren't these photos ridiculously cute, and silly too?!?!?)







For crocheters, we are recommending you check out any of the awesome FREE hat patterns from Schachenmayr's My Mountain Campaign that use the original Boston yarn in the Team USA Hat Kit. (By no means do you have to use the knit pattern we provide, it's just a little extra freebie we've included.) There are several really great unisex designs from My Mountain, like the Feldberg, Sunshine Peak, or Mount Tyree hats, that are simple and easy to crochet. 

Remember, you don't have to use our pattern, yarn, or our kit --we will happily forward on anyone's awesome handmade hat (as long as it's red, white, and blue)! Go Team USA!

Happy knitting and crocheting!
Kristen

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