Monday, August 17, 2015

Meet the Contestants

I was in the beginning stages of realizing what madness I had willing and without much thought, jumped into with both feet..............

Saturday April 6th 2013, at the Vogue Knitting Event in Seattle, the 12 contestants for The Fiber Factor were announced and I was one of them. That evening an email was sent informing the 12 of us we had been chosen as the contestants.  We were also told to watch for a box of goodies which would arrive on Monday the 8th, the same day the first challenge was to be announced.

Wow.

And at the time I WAS excited.  This really was a pretty cool thing to be chosen for and involved in! And YIKES it was going to start on Monday!!!

The email also gave us some info on what the challenge was.  Yes, we did get a sneak peek at the first challenge being put to us before you guys did.  ;)  Also included in the announcement email, was the video schedule. Now lets take a look at this a minute. This was the point where it all got very very real.

April 6th approximately 9:30pm CST :
-We have a challenge outlined before us.

April 8th:
-The challenge will be announced publicly
-A bag of "goodies" will arrive.

April 10th by 10:00am:
-Yarn order must be emailed with our preference of which addi click set we would like.

April 11th:
-Yarn order will arrive

April15th:
-Introduction video due

April 22nd:
-Second video due, topic: My thoughts on the challenge. What and why yarn did I use? What was my inspiration? What is the design?

May 1st:
-Third video due, topic: Presenting and explaining the final piece to the judges, discuss the inspiration, techniques, and how the piece meets the challenge.

Oh my!

Let's examine this timeframe/predicament I had put myself in:

Saturday 9:30pm - Wednesday 10:30am =  85 hours

85 hours to design something in accord with the challenge description, choose the proper yarn and order said yarn.  hmmmm  it could be done under normal circumstances, on a good day, no problem, but these didn't feel like normal circumstances.

The list of yarns, there were 13 of them, were yarns I was NOT familiar with. They were wool, mohair, alpaca, silk, linen, cotton yarns and blends, in weights from lace to super bulky. A couple of them weren't even on the market yet, if I remember correctly!!!  No, this didn't feel like normal circumstances.

I wondered who the other crazy/adventurous people who had found themselves facing the same set of circumstances as I were.  My curiosity was piqued to say the least.

Technically the individual introduction videos linked below were not available at this point. I only knew these people by name from the flurry of emails which went back and forth between us, the contestants, and "Chuck", some guy from Skacel I didn't know nor had ever heard of.

BUT

I did get a snippet glimpse of them on the Meet the Contestants video!



Shortly thereafter during the course of Challenge One the individual introduction videos were released. I'm stepping away from the historic timeline of The Fiber Factor for the sake of continuity and will address all things Challenge One in the next post but today is Meet the Contestants day. Today we "meet" or reacquaint ourselves with the other brave souls who had walk, soared, stumbled, and sometimes scraped their knees as I had during that journey.  We are a unique bunch.  No one has lived to tell the tale as we can, nor it seems, will anyone be able to do so in the future.  sigh.

I guess it is only fitting since this is my blog, the first Introduction video I load here is my own. Remember that guy Chuck I mentioned earlier?  From that point on he became my guardian angel so to speak.  For each video due I sent him multiple snippets of raw video and he did his magic.  My "official" introduction video below is a melding of snippets from my original application video which you saw in a previous post and the multitude of raw snippets I sent him for the introduction video. Behold the magic of Chuck!



Funny, he didn't include any part of this snippet it kinda captures the level of crazy I was in at the time.  ;)


Chuck and I didn't know each other very well at the time.  Ha, "very well?!?" we didn't know each other at all!  But over the course of the game, we became true friends, and I am so very glad he is in my life.  ::smooches::

And now onward to the real videos.  First up is a link to the entire playlist of the individual videos, this link will introduce you to each contestant, one right after the other without the need for multiple link clicking.  Below that link are the individual links to each contestants meet and greet video and a little bit of contact info they have given me.

Meet Contestant Full Play List

Meet Talitha Kuomi!

ravelry: talithakuomi     http://www.ravelry.com/designers/talitha-kuomi
twitter: @talithakuomi     https://twitter.com/talithakuomi
instagram: talithakuomi
pinterest: talithakuomi     https://www.pinterest.com/talithakuomi/



ravelry: http://www.ravelry.com/designers/jodie-gordon-lucas
website:  www.QueenieKnits.com


ravelry: http://www.ravelry.com/designers/john-ravet


Ravelry: girlyknits  http://www.ravelry.com/designers/lauren-riker
Twitter: girlyknits
Instagram: girlyknits


ravelry: http://www.ravelry.com/designers/terri-rosenthal


ravelry: http://www.ravelry.com/designers/steve-may
facebook: Steve May


ravelry: http://www.ravelry.com/designers/katie-rempe
website: http://www.katertaterknits.com


ravelry: http://www.ravelry.com/designers/rachel-henry


ravelry: http://www.ravelry.com/designers/meghan-navoy


ravelry: http://www.ravelry.com/designers/natalie-larson


ravelry: http://www.ravelry.com/designers/jennette-cross



Up next: Challenge One or Crash and Burn, What Was I Thinking!?!