April 17, 2014...I received an email from Claudia of The Yarn Sisters, the American distributor of Zealana yarns (New Zealand). Claudia is one of four women who are related through their love of yarn (one Irish, two Americans, one from New Zealand).
As I read her email that Thursday afternoon, I found that Zealana had earlier requested a small project using multiple colors for an event called Sample It! at The National Needle Arts Association (TNNA) summer trade show.
A little FYI, the TNNA trade shows are where the yarn shop owners meet with the yarn companies to order for their shops. The "market" opens on Saturday morning and is order only...no "cash and carry". However, on Friday night, vendors offer a sample of their products at highly reduced prices at a frenzied event called "Sample It!".
Apparently, the striped hat designed for the event was not exactly what the Zealana rep had in mind. Claudia's email was a frantic plea for help.
You should know here that in 2014, TNNA was held in Indianapolis...on May 1-5.
Have you done the math? In just a bit over two weeks...yarn sent, pattern designed, sample made, pattern written up, pattern tech edited, photos taken, pattern printed, and yarn and pattern packaged for sale. Don't know where my head was...but I answered that I'd try to put something together for them.
The yarn arrived the next day. Three special skeins of Zealana Luxuria Air (40% of down from the brushtail possum fiber, combined with 40% cashmere and 20% mulberry silk), 10 grams/64 yards each...lace weight! This yarn is truly scrumptious! Light as air (pun intended) and really warm. A total delight!
I'm guessing there must have been a rip in the time-space continuum, because we made it!
On Friday evening, I was standing with Claudia at Sample It! with Teggala on my head. We completely sold out of the kits which included the three skeins of yarn and the pattern all nicely packaged in a small hatbox-type container.
[Cue: self-congratulatory pat on the back. Then...ominous foreshadowing music.]
Next installment...remember the skeins for the whirlwind hat pattern? Luxuria Air 10g each..right? Those were a limited edition. The real skeins for Air are 25g.
So Claudia asked if I would designs mitts to go with the hat. The idea was the two projects could be made with three 25g skeins. The design was pretty much done. I only needed to adapt it to mitts. Easy, right?
Off I went. Adapted the design and then on to knitting up the samples. Because I didn't want to make one mitt and run out of one color or other, I decided to knit both mitts at the same time.
It was like knitting in molasses. It took forever to get those things done. The tangles had a mind of their own. Weeks...months...went by. I had the hat completely finished in 12 days...but this was dragging out for millennium. So embarrassed.
That's what I get for thinking I was super designer. I could design and knit samples "faster than a speeding bullet".
Story of my life...the minute I get cocky....out goes that rug out from under me!
Anyway, I finally got them finished. Claudia was extremely gracious.
So there you have it. The Teggala hat kit can be found here. I haven't seen the mitts yet..but they are out there.
Until next time..
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