Sock Summit 2011 Aftermath

It was a lovely event and I am lucky to have been there. I should have taken 100 photos but instead I have a few. Wanna see? (Click on any of them to see them bigger)

The location:



My Classes:





The stuff:




My first Signatures!


Thing-a-ma-hook:


Speaking of Spindle Cat Studios, here is the aluminum foil sock:


Here is Stephen HizKnit hizSelf:


I posed for a project connected to a neat new book, My Grandmother's Knitting by Larissa Brown. As you can see, it was my own grandmother who taught me how to knit. I'm happy to see a book that honors the tradition, instead of the typical "This ain't you grandma's knitting" type of marketing we've had to endure.


photo by Larissa Brown

In summary, I loved seeing old friends and making new ones. I loved the classes I taught and took. I loved the marketplace and having friends there to share it with. The best parts for me were the little things too small and numerous to list.

Also, I came away feeling like I will be able to start designing again in full force this fall. Thank you Sock Summit, you magical beast. I look forward to your return in 2013.

It Happened

Sock Summit Flash Mob

With the teacher dinner eight hours away from this here moment I find myself in a state of unfocused panic and excitement. I had to look at the Sock Summit website one more time to be sure it's real.

Then I stumbled upon this:



Just curious how many people are going to do this...?

I am also looking at twitter too much because there is a lot of Sock Summit buzz there. I happened to see this tweet from Interweave:

InterweaveNews Jaime Guthals
Free IW book (your choice) to the person who gets Ann Budd (sober) to do flash mob dance at #socksummit. 2 @IWBooks if you get it on camera

So many questions.

edited to add: Oh yeah, should I be knitting a sock during the summit? Why is this just occurring to me now?

Getting ready for Sock Summit 2011

Good day party people! Our mayor has officially declared next week to be "Sock Knitting Week" in Portland so I better get on board with this significance asap.


(Yes, you may have to click on that one to read it)

Here we are, less than a week away from Sock Summit 2011. It's hard not to reflect on what the first Sock Summit was like and what it meant for me. I always find time for reflection when deadlines loom.

It was a magical experience. There was a convention center full of energized and joyful knitters. Everywhere you looked, someone was knitting. I belonged. We understood each other. It was like finally arriving at Hogwarts after living too long under the stairs in a muggle house.

In the broader sense I was crazy in love with my community, my friends, and my town. I had a million ideas and I was excited about everything. I felt connected to an ocean of potential and I had an awesome surfboard. My future was waiting. In short, I was just so happy.


photo taken of Sock Summit 2009 Ravelry party laughter by leethal

It's bittersweet to recall these times. The universe knows, my friends know. This go around my life looks quite different. I'll let someone else speak (poetically) on the subject: "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." (attributed to Dr. Seuss)

This is a fresh start. It will be a different Sock Summit too. Last time we set a world record. This year there will be a flash mob. Last time my new friend Stephen hizKNITS bought me socks from Barbara Walker. THE Barbara Walker.



These are her actual socks. She knit them flat and seamed them up and wore them a great deal. I used to have them hanging by my front door. I've moved twice since then and I think they are now living in a box somewhere.


(I gave Stephen some homespun to say thank you. He seemed to like it.)

I'm happy to report that my classes are all booked up next week. I am looking forward to meeting old friends and making new ones. I wonder what else this period of time will bring and what the future holds for me now.

I plan on finishing the Socks For All Seasons e-book before the Summit. I plan on releasing details of my new club during the Summit as well. Now that I think about it, there are many exciting fiber-y happenings just around the corner. Stay tuned!

Sock Summit Aftermath, part 2

Okay, my last post regarding the Sock Summit was more of a collection of images and random thoughts. This will likely be no different. I'm sorry to anyone or thing I forget to mention. I just can't list everything that happened. Surprised? Of course not. Why?

Because the Sock Summit is a unicorn. You can't capture it. Yes, it's magic chases away evil. But it is also elusive and rare. Maybe you only get one sighting in your whole life.

OR, maybe it's because I taught three long classes, took two long classes, wandered the marketplace, attended dinners and panels, sat in the Lucy Booth (advice, 5 cents) partied, and made about a hundred new friends. In four days. I've had enough time to process it, but I still don't know if it was all just a dream.

Still with me? Great. I'd like to try to start with a quick review of the classes I took. The first one was Colorful Stitches with Tina Newton and Anna Zilboorg.

This picture is of the tote the teachers got, but if you look closely you'll see a tiny swatch tied to the top. This is what I made in that class.



Tina is the genius behind Blue Moon Fiber Arts, makers of the iconic sock yarn - Socks That Rock. Anna Zilboorg is a Turkish knitting expert. Both are color savants. Both are so much more than those tiny descriptions.

Anna Zilboorg told us that she never really saw color until she discovered something in the 1960's... "killer weed." Yes, it was as plain as that. She was Harvard educated and helped found the Humanities department at MIT, where she taught for a long while. She is elegant, funny, charming and classy. I want to be her when I grow up.

Tina created over 500 colorways at Blue Moon. She has a raven book coming out this fall that you will all want to own. She told an amazing story about ravens and how they inspired her to do a series of colors all playing on black. All beautiful, none of them flat.

I won't talk too much about what happened in class in case I step on proprietary-type toes. Those are giant cranky toes with nails that scratch (sorry, gross). I will say Anna Zilboorg teased me about breaking the rules. Which, ordinarily would be great. It would be so great that I would ask her to write it on my body in Sharpie as a badge of honor. But in this case, she was trying to liberate us from matching colors, and I just went ahead and coordinated colors anyway. I am the worst kind of rule breaker: The one who isn't free!

The next class was Engineering New Stitches with Cat Bordhi. Cat Bordhi is one of the most original thinkers I've ever run across. She is best known for knitting moebius type garments or inventing several new sock architectures known as sockitectures. She too, is so much more that that.

My brain is still processing all of the information shared in that class. I feel like I can now write my own stitch dictionary. I can combine stitches in new ways. In short, I can do anything. This is probably the best feeling humans get to have.



And now, as promised, I present to you Barbara Walker's socks. She knit them, she wore them. She sold them for $5. They now hang over my front door as a good luck charm. But you know what's crazy? (No, you haven't heard the "crazy" part yet) These were knit flat and them seamed up the front. React as you will.



The marketplace was bonkers. I was overwhelmed the entire time I was in there. I managed to pick up a few things and actually took a couple of pictures. This is not the entirety of what came home with me but I don't want to get a reputation.

The first yarn up there is Bugga from Sanguine Gryphon in the color Rainbow Scarab. I was lucky enough to sit next to Gryphon in Cat Bordhi's class and she is so cute and fun and interesting. Of course her yarn is too. With 20% cashmere content, this yarn is not going to become socks. It will be something about the neck.



The Usual. Nothing usual about it. I love this yarn and the colors are great. The one on the left was a gift from my friend Nancy and I actually started crying when she gave it to me. It was a combination of her generosity, the beauty of the yarn, the fact that I hadn't eaten more than a handful of trail mix in 18 hours, and some other things. But mostly her generosity.

I'm so lucky to live in Portland, with so many amazing and talented friends. The place where the first Sock Summit happened. The place of unicorns.

Sock Summit Aftermath, part 1

I'm likely to ramble on a bit about the Sock Summit here and there and everywhere for the rest of my days. I'll just start now with some random thoughts and images. Part 2 will come soon.



Yes, it was a convention center full of yarn. There are that many of us.



Amy knitty playing the ukelele at the opening reception. She told me I had bright eyes and also complimented me on my pattern frankensocks. I just kept giggling and nodding and screaming like a banshee (that last part was just on the inside).



I also got to take part in the breaking of a world record as defined by Guinness: The most number of knitters gathered together to knit at the same time. We did it for 15 minutes and used straight needles.

I was lucky enough to sit right behind Barbara Walker, but was too shy to talk to her directly, of course.



Here is Lee of the Leethal blog, attending the Luminary panel in the handknit ski mask she made. If you click here, you can see silly pictures of ME DANCING at the Ravelry party. I was not drunk, but so sleep deprived that my criteria for good decision making was severely compromised.

So, yeah, some random highlights. In our next installment, I'll tell you more about the classes, the marketplace, and the story of how I came to own a pair of Barbara flipping Walker's very own personal handknit socks!

Registration for the Sock Summit

I just received this email - did you?

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Dear Honoured, Clever and Expectant Knitters,

The Sock Summit Team is pleased to announce that barring technical disaster, actual disaster or disaster of a sort we haven't imagined yet but is entirely possible.... we believe that Registration for the Sock Summit will begin on Tuesday, the 26th of May at 10am PDT.

There's a Frequently Asked Questions page here. Which may help you with concerns or questions that you have about all things summit-wise. If you still have a question after checking in there, feel free to drop us an email at info@socksummit.com, and someone will get back to you as soon as they are able.

We will send out a detailed “how to register” email 24 hours before registration begins. We will also be adding this information to the website on the registration page so please look there.

Looking forward to the Sock Summit, can't wait to see you there,

Tina & Stephanie

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Sock Summit Website is here.