1,000 Hats!

Anyone who knows me, knows that I LOVE hats - hats of all kinds!

As a matter of fact, I worked on Broadway as a milliner (I did all the hats for Angels In America, Millennium Approaches & Perestroika in the 90's - my B'way millinery claim to fame!) and I love a well-made hat.

One of my quieter sellers, but a good book, is Knitted Millinery, which explains how to use hand knitting and millinery techniques to create beautiful, unexpected hats (like the one to the right, from Romantic Hand Knits)

I love a good knit hat.

So when I was approached by Rockport Publishing to compile a collection of 1,000 images of hand knit hats, I was very excited.

What they - WE - are looking for are, literally, 1,000 images of hats that have been knit. We would like to see all kinds of hats, from the simple to the very complex, to publish as a sort of "idea book" of images of hats.

There will be 2 categories for submission:

• Inspired Hats
  (worked off of existing patterns from any source)
  
  
• Original Designs
  (hats submitted by the designer, eligible for prizes)

Did You Say Prizes?
In the Original category there will be 3 large cash prizes of

$500 - First Prize
$300 - Second Prize
$200 - Third Prize

The 7 runner-ups will receive 4 copies of the book each.

The top 10 Original Designs will also have their patterns published in the book.

Tell Me More!
I've put together a website explaining this in greater detail, and also explaining how to go about submitting images for the book. We've set up a drop-box at box.net, which should streamline things and make the whole process as stress free as possible.

I hope if you've knit up a hat you'll consider submitting! It's a short deadline - I'm sorry about that - but it's good in the sense that it doesn't allow a lot of second guessing. Just send in that hat image and the 2 submission forms (Image List and Grant of Rights to use your image) and we'll take care of the rest!

Yarn Shop / Company / Magazine / Designers
If you happen to own a knit or yarn related business - this could be a great marketing tool! We'll be having different categories of Inspired Hats, if there are enough hats inspired by your yarn, your patterns, or your website/magazine, we'll be creating a category for YOUR business, with contact information.

Please consider publicizing this endeavor to your customers, I'd love to see some exciting knit business inspired categories (maybe even hats from knitters who love X, Y or Z's yarn shop!)