A Month Ago

A month ago today, I came home from Sock Summit. Wow! Time flies when you're not blogging. It also flies when you get home from a 5 day trip out of state and realize that you have to pack up your whole house and move it to the next town over.

But we won't discuss that today. We won't talk about my strained back, my strained nerves, the fact that if this moving doesn't end soon I'll be eating strained peas in the VA psych ward.

We will talk about Day 2 of the Sock Summit (or, Day 3 of my Portland Trip)....

We got up, ate another wonderful breakfast, spent another exciting, fun-filled (albeit exhausting day) at the Marketplace. I had a class with Deb Robson from 9-12. It was called Cross Your Cables and Dot Your Purls and was about the publishing industry. It was very informative and quite fun! Deb actually lives not too terribly far from me and she said yes to me taking her to lunch sometime and picking her brain! Deb Robson is another of the Knitterati that I'd met previously and had no clue I was in the presence of greatness.

(We moved to Colorado Nov./06. We were broke and stressed but happy to be out of Tucson. The following April, for my birthday, I told Dave that the only thing I wanted was to go to the downtown Tattered Cover (independent bookstore) and see the Yarn Harlot speak (it involved some quite expensive childcare). So I got to see her for the first time! I got there a couple hours early and sat with some lovely women. One of which was Deb Robson!)

Donna had a class from 10-11a and we were lucky enough to have a helper from Lotus Yarns cover our booth. Donna's class was the KnitteRX I'd talked about previously.

So we spent the day selling and meeting and taking turns wandering the Marketplace floor (dangerous business that). If I remember right, this is the day Anna Zilboorg came to claim her present.

She was so funny! When I sell a Stitch Saver, I say, "I hope you never need it" as a sort of blessing against angry Knitting Goddesses. She laughed and said that was unlikely. She went on to tell me a story...
"Let's see... how can I turn this into a knitting lesson? I had a friend who was 40 when he was to discover he had a very bad cancer. He joked and said, "I always knew perfect health was a temporary condition." That's how I feel about knitting. I always know perfect knitting is a temporary condition!"

She's lovely and I would like to take her to lunch sometime! (Does anyone know if she has a blog or public email or anything? I've tried googling her but only come up with Sock Summit and book stuff about her.)

After Market, we met up with Imbrium and set off to find the Sock Hop. (We changed our clothes and pretty-ed up in the Convention Center bathroom.) Imbrium got a tip on an outstanding Lebanese restaurant. So. Damn. Good!

After eating we made our way to the Art Museum where the dance was held. We arrived a bit later then most and the place was well filled with lots of people sitting at tables they'd set up at the top of the stairs. Why would you go to a dance to sit around at tables? To knit of course! And to socialize. And who is sitting at that one table??? Cookie A.! I kind of recognized her but didn't go talk to her.

Some older women were gathered around one of the statues on that upper level. I was coming back from the bathroom and wondered what they were up to. A lot of Sock Summit attendees (including myself) made wee socks and pinned them to our shirts for roundabout town identification. One of these older women had taken her sock and put it on the tiny penis of one of the full-sized nude statues! They were taking pictures and giggling like crazy! One of the women had to put her finger at the base of the... sock to keep it from slipping off - so it looked like she was pointing at the... sock. So crazy!

I did the stroll and hung out with people and laughed and even danced with Tina (of STR fame) and Stephanie (of Yarn Harlot fame) at the same time! I believe, on her blog, Stephanie mentioned how Rachel H was born to a poodle skirt. It's so true! And Rachel H seemed a bit tipsy and giddy but maybe it was the lack of sleep. I remember thinking, "heh, she gets tipsy and silly just like everyone else!" I'm a dork.

I also talked with Lucy Neatby again and we were joined by JC Briar and, a bit later, by Joan Schrouder. When Joan walked up, JC introduced us and then leaned over to me and whispered, "Joan is the reason that I'm a teacher now. She's the one who taught me!" Then JC had Joan lift her long skirt and show me her socks. They are a beautiful masterpiece of knee high, cable, twisted Bavarian stitching that has a genius wedge of cabling in the back that creates the calf shaping. Stunning!

I asked Joan, "Wow! Those are so beautiful! How long did it take you to knit them?", then, feeling a bit stupid for asking, I added, "Probably not too long, right? I mean, you probably knit really fast."

She smiled and said, rather ruefully, "Ten years."

I looked at her, stunned, and said, "Stop it.", thinking she was teasing me. She wasn't. She went on to explain that she did the cuff and leg parts in about 3 months. Figuring out the heel shaping was giving her such a hard time that she threw them in a closet and only pulled them out to finish them last month so she could give the class at Sock Summit for them! So, actually, 4 months. Ten years and four months. Hah! Does my heart good to know such amazing teachers also have their own personal Closets of No Return just like me!

So where were Donna and Imbrium during all this? They were wandering around and meeting people too. They aren't as star struck as I am. I know, total dorkasaurus - not a real rare breed though, right? I mean, when I meet these Knitting Stars, I'm cool and casual. I try to be anyway. I don't often succeed. Like when I met Casey and Jess at the dance. Casey and Jess are the creators of Ravelry.com, maybe you've heard of it? I think I said something brilliant like, "So... Ravelry... good job there!" I'm a dumbass.

We met a bunch of other people, too! One woman (who turned out to be Volunteer Extraordinaire as she was introduced at the Luminary Panel "Thanks" speech) had on a pair of lovely socks! Socks that I had just bought the kit for that very day. They are the Nine Tailors sock kit from Tsarina. I was admiring them and saying how I'd just bought that kit and was looking forward to tackling it when I got home. She said that the panel of color was the hardest part, "I mean, 8 colors! Whew! But once you get past that, the rest is a breeze!". Whoa, whoa, whoa. 8 colors?! I thought it was a ball of variegated yarn!! It's not. It's a ball of eight separate strands of color to do some stranded colorwork with! What the hell did I get myself into?! Sigh.

Donna and I were both tired from our Marketplace day so we (along with Imbrium) left the dance by 10p. We got home at around 11p as we took a wrong turn and were (mis)guided by signs through town to the freeway (signs that promised but never actually delivered the elusive highway), then got on the highway the wrong way.... drag.

But we finally made it to John and Melissa's house where we reinflated our beds and tumbled in. Those inflatable beds are never very comfortable, are they? They always seem to deflate a bit during the night so in the end it's more like sleeping in a hammock! But we were usually so exhausted that we slept like the dead anyway!

More Sock Summit next time, Ruth!