Sock Summit Recap: Thursday

I'm back from Sock Summit, and I'm super tired. Seriously--I got at least 7 hours of sleep last night, had a relatively easy day at work, but had to nap through the first five innings of the Mariner's game (at home, not at the park). I had a really, really great time, and I'm certain not to do it justice, but I'll try to post the day-by-day recap over the next several days, even though Thursday is already really fuzzy to me.

First up, in the upper left are Meg Swanson and Amy Detjen, who taught my Elizabeth Zimmerman Moccasin Sock class. This was a class I manage to snag during the lottery, and although I'm not sure I see a lot of these socks in my future, this class was terrific. The amount of knowledge that Meg and Amy shared that was not even remotely related to the moccasins as we all knit away was well worth the price of admission. I'm not much of a sweater knitter (or finisher), I'm not a really flexible or reactive knitter, but I've got a strong urge to go to Knitting Camp.

I had a little trouble with my actual sock, in that I didn't bring extra knitpicks cables and when it would have been easiest to switch to a longer cable, the screw end of that cable was faulty. Although maybe I didn't try hard enough, because I think that I had used that cable with those tips before. It was a struggle to knit with the shorter cable, so after class was over I didn't make any more progress over the weekend. Anyway, now that I'm home, I can use another cable and hopefully pick up where I left off, and pretend I'm just hanging around with Meg and Amy while I knit. One of the wholly unrelated to class things that I learned was that Schoolhouse Press is reissuing (in English) the twisted stitch books in a single volume, and that they will be out SOON. I've ordered my copy--I'm so excited to find out how I've been screwing these patterns up by not knowing English!!!! I'm serious!!!

My friend E____ came out from Boston for Sock Summit, which made it extra fun. We were roommates for y-e-a-r-s when I lived there, and I taught her to knit by making her teach herself from Vogue Knitting's big reference book. I did agree to answer questions after she'd studied it, but I felt that forcing her to fend for herself proved that she was serious about learning (and she was). On Thursday, she took Knitting Vintage Socks with Nancy Bush, and said it was great--she made a really beautiful gusset (no hole!) on her in-class sock.

E___ and I didn't get tickets to the Opening Ceremonies, but I did check out the silent auction on my way back to the hotel, and one of my Barn Raising Squares is right there on the edge of the auctioned blanket! What a thrill--it's the purple/yellow/brown square! I think that there was a lottery for another blanket or two, but somehow I missed it completely, so I'm not sure what happened to the green square I made. You can ask E_____, or L_____, or E_____, or T_____--I was a (more than a) little bit insane during various parts of the weekend, so it's not surprising that I'd miss it. It started when we arrived at the hotel and saw Anne Hanson and Cookie A sitting outside on a bench, and just rolled forward from there.

The last photo (assuming you're reading clockwise from upper left) was taken at Voodoo Donuts in an after-dinner donut run. I selected the orange donut. It was covered in Tang, which made it, well, tang-y. It was delicious, and hilarious, and the perfect thing to eat at the end of a really, really long day.