Updated: 10/23/2009 5:31:37 PM
A phone call is all it took for Sandy Gray to round up a team of knitters and crotcheters, who would answer to the challenge.
"They just called me out of the blue," she says. "We were contacted by a shop in Alabama and they challenged us to see who could make the most preemie caps."
The tiny caps would be donated to area neonatal centers at University of Tennessee Medical Center, St. Mary's and Children's Hospital.
With a 150 knitters on her team, Sandy was hoping to score at least 2,000 caps.
"I was pretty sure that our UT folks would come through once they knew it was an Alabama team," Sandy says.
But her team didn't only come through. You could call their win a blow out.
"We ended up with a total of 3,171 caps and so we beat the Alabama team," she says. "They only made 1,738."
For now the more than 3,000 preemie caps cover the wall at Yarn Haven in Knoxville.
"Of course we have our little patriotic section, so for babies that were born around the Fourth of July they will have something very patriotic to use," Sandy says.
The caps also have Christmas themes, and of course lots of orange and white. The creative and competitive spirit were both alive and well.
"We actually had four ladies who made over 250 each, so we did have some very high producing people," Sandy says. "But, we were appreciative even if they made just one cap, because one cap is one more that they didn't have before."
Looks like the local knitters really had their heads and hearts in the game.
