Mere hours after the Olympics Opening Ceremonies last week, I started hearing from people who want to know more about the hats some members of the Swedish team wore during the procession. I snapped this photo today while walking through Whistler Village. That's some hat!
Anyway. Not having any idea where to find this information, I of course asked the internets.
A week later, we still don't know who made those handmade hats, but we're getting closer. Here's how it's gone so far:
Mary-Heather of Ravelry fame dug up a page on a Swedish bank site that seems to be offering the hats as a promotion.
Linda Holmes over at NPR's Monkey See blog wrote about some outrageous Olympics outfits (she didn't write this because I asked the internets, of course. She wrote it because she's awesome. It's just a nice coincidence), and I asked in the comments over there if she'd mind looking into the hats. She commented back that she "reached out to the Swedish Olympic Committee." No follow-up yet from Linda.
Super twitterer @ThingsBright has done some searching and came up with a blog post in Swedish that includes a photo of what seems to be a pattern that may be printed by a yarn company. She also found this video, which Swedish-speaking twitterer @bagatell says doesn't feature the designer or maker of the hats, but features instead a woman talking about how easy it is to crochet them. She also sent me a couple of email addresses for publicity folks from the Swedish Olympic Committee. I haven't heard back from them yet.
So our search for information continues! If you know anyone who might have information to help us find out who made those striking hats, please leave a comment or email me!