5207

last night i stayed three hours after work counting hats. if you remember, we have a shipment of some fourteen thousand hats that need to be in america, stat. working for krochetkids has taught me just how much work it takes getting all those hats from uganda to its final location. it's not exactly complicated, but it IS time consuming. i will never look at an imported product the same again! so here is a general run down of how our products go from being yarn to products to the stores:

1. every lady gets a list of expected hats to make each week
2. ladies make the hat, and put their hats in their basket for us to be checked
3. a looong line of about 50 baskets will begin to form throughout the duration of the week
4. bad hats are sent back to be corrected, good hats are sent to be "post-checked" for quality control
5. hats that pass the "post-check" are put in a box for tailors to sew outside labels on
6. labeled hats go to the "taggers and baggers," who put additional labels on (the ones you cut off after your purchase) and seal them in poly bags
7. hats get counted and recounted (and counted again...triple and then quadruple counted?)
8. hats get boxed and put onto the bus to go to kampala, then from there gets shipped to the US, Europe and/or Australia
9. hats that get shipped to our office in the US get checked again for quality control
10. hats end up in stores, people buy, and lives are changed!

SO. it's a long process. i didn't even involve how we get our yarn (more like it's cause i don't know how...somewhere in china....). so going back to my original paragraph...we stayed late after work yesterday counting hats.

2,000 style "5207" black and 1,600 style "5207" deep ocean, making a total of 3,600 hats, and that is only a small dent of the 14,000 that need to leave by tomorrow morning....

if you see our hats in the stores, know that each one of them handled with care and lots of work have been put in to get them to you!

the picture attached is a sea of hats from last night...the picture does no justice to the work we put in, but here it is anyway! sorry the picture is so dark, mind you, it was taken at 7:30 pm with minimal lighting!