“Knitter's Tea Swap

Article by Suzie Racho

 

The Knitters Tea Swap was born in early 2006, in the midst of non-stop rain and storms in Northern California. I think I was suffering from cabin fever after having my home and body drenched constantly. For weeks, it seemed like I spent much of my free time inside, with yarn in my hands and a cup of good, strong black tea (with milk and sugar, please) by my side.

After a few years of participating in secret pal programs, knit-alongs and other knitter related online trades, I decided to combine these two favorite things: knitting and tea. It was a simple idea really, a one time swap combining these two loves.

I'd had varying degrees of satisfaction and success with the swaps I'd been involved in, and I wanted to do a couple of things a little differently for KTS.

First off, I wanted it to be a fairly small number of people, since it was the first time I would be hosting. I heard horror stories from other swap hosts about how the anonymity of the 'net seems to also bring out some not-so-nice qualities in people, and I wanted the experience to be a smooth as possible for everyone. So I limited the sign-up period to two weeks and  started by just posting about it on my own blog: www.thepurlygates.net and the Fiber RAOK (random acts of kindness) mailing list.

Second, I really wanted everyone in the group to be able to post and share what they got from their spoiler, both so people could get ideas of what to send and so we could all bond as group. I thought it would be a nice way for all of us to get to know each other and ooh and ahh at all the goodies flying around!

Third, it was going to be a one-time swap..no muss, no fuss. I hoped.

The rules were simple:
You were to mail your spoilee three things:
1. A box/tin/container of your favorite tea. 

2. A treat to accompany the tea. Cookies, candy, petit fours, etc...

3. 1-2 skeins of yarn from your stash. Must be enough for a small project or socks. For example, you could send a 100gr skein of sock yarn or 2 skeins of Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride. Let's say yarn should retail around $15.00.

Plus a note about your tea and treat choices and suggestions for the yarn.

I put the blog up, posted about it and waited. It didn't take long for people to start signing up. Within 10 days, I had 60 people. By the end of the sign up period, we were up to 85. The final tally was 96! I was amazed.

We had swappers from all over the world: Australia, Malaysia, France, Singapore, UK, Korea, Denmark, Hong Kong, Canada, Sweden and the US.

While we were waiting for partner matches to be emailed out, I asked folks to flash their tea stashes on the blog. This was really fun…we all got to look into each other's cupboards and read stories about favorite mugs, pots and teas.



At  the end of May and all through June, packages arrived in swappers mailboxes. I was blown away by the generosity of many participants. Some of the packages were definitely above and beyond the minimums I set.



Despite all the good cheer going around, the swap wasn't problem free. We had a few flakes, so I did have to call in an angel or two. There are a couple of missing packages that haven't shown up yet and some felt that they got shortchanged by their pal. It's hard. I can understand the different levels of expectation that people have…but overall, KTS was a success and far more problem free than I could have hoped. This may have been to my overzealousness, (did I mention I'm a bit of a perfectionist?) in keeping up with all the emails and checking everyone's blogs to make sure their swap was complete. It's just part of my nature I guess. If we end up having many, many more people in the next round, I don't know if I'll be able to pour as much attention into every bit of the swap but I hope I can. It was a great experience and from the feedback I got on the blog and via email, most everyone who participated really enjoyed it. Stay tuned for Round 2 in September! To read all the posts go to the KTS Blog at http://knittersteaswap.blogspot.com.