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.

You Made Me Feel So Blue

Still no word on Sock Summit (no news is good news? I'll be surprised), and my third Barn Raising Quilt Square is having some problems. I noticed a couple of rows ago that something had fallen out of sync--the pattern was changing at the second stitch marker, instead of the first. I looked, but couldn't find an error, and thought that maybe I'd mixed up my markers. Until yesterday, when I took a flat-out photo of it, and could see that I'd screwed up just above where those markers are now. Time to rip!

The yarn is Smooshy in Dusky Aurora left over from these socks. Assuming that I do in fact finish the square, I may run out of yarn, but I've got plenty of backup options that should look fine.

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You Made Me Feel So Blue: The Jayhawks, "Blue". There is an annoying ad at the front of the video, and it's a weird video. But it's a great song.

And Then, There Were Two

Even though it now seems likely that I won't be going to Sock Summit, and I feel totally sick about it, I did finish my second square for Larissa's Barn Raising Quilt fundraiser. It's knit from Socks that Rock in Olive Garden (left over from this scarf), with a little Smooshy going around the edges because I ran out of yarn. I'm reblocking the first block, because I'm an idiot and blocked it to the wrong size. My original plan was to knit five, but that was before I committed to knitting the Blue Garter Shawl during the same time. I'm sure that my failure won't be a problem--it sounds like a lot of people who didn't commit to a specific number of squares have contributed.

If You're Feeling Sinister

Looks a little like I've dissected it, doesn't it? Hopefully, the sides will come out fairly straight (rather than pointed). A second square is on the needles--I'm going to try and finish five of them.

Loop It Up

I had a request on a Ravelry board for photos showing how I was pulling out the loop for my Barn Raising square (it's for a Doctors Without Borders fundraiser, see here for details) and I thought it might be good to post here, too. My needle has a light blue cable, which is a little hard to see.

Here's the rundown:

Top Row, Left: No loop--needles are in the middle of the right vertical side. This is the beginning of the round (within a stitch or two), because the first marker is the red circle. The other markers are yellow or green hearts.

Top Row, Right: I'm pointing at the mid point of the left vertical side. This is where I'm going to pull out the loop. It's not important that the loop is exactly halfway, I didn't count or anything.

Bottom Row, Left: I'm pulling out the loop, without making a hard crease in the cable or stretching out the stitches too much.

Bottom Row, Right: Once the loop is pulled out, scrunch up the stitches onto each needle. With the work facing you, pull the left needle out far enough so that you can start knitting the stitches on the right needle. If you have too many stitches, or don't scrunch them up enough, they will catch on the join and you will have to push them up again. If your cable is long enough, you can pull out another loop (divide the stitches roughly into thirds). I tried this for awhile with this squre, but my needle is really too short for that so I've gone back to one loop and it's been fine.

I'm on the last round of this square, and I've started another square on dpns so I can jump right into another one!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

Now that's more like it! And it'd much easier to knit this way than the spirally way--but maybe that's just because I'd had all of that DPN practice with the first square. I haven't used DPNs for anything in a long time. The yarn is a ball of Koigu that I bought at Madrona this year, and then I decided that I didn't like it for the project I had planned for it. I think that it will make a good square, and will blend in with a lot of different colors. I may make a few in this yarn, but I've also got one or two other bits of leftover sock yarn I can dip into . . .

Where is My Mind? Where is My Mind?

Larissa over at Stitch Marker is organizing a Barn Raising blanket fundraiser for Sock Summit 2009, and what with my inability to knit patterns I thought that starting a square might be just within my grasp this evening. How wrong I was:

It's a lovely pinwheel, but it's not going to look good when combined with the strong, straight diagonals of the other squares. Fortunately, this isn't really that much knitting, so I'll just start over and try to follow the pattern this time. It's really not a hard thing to do--I just winged it a little.

If you're planning to attend Sock Summit (or will just be there in spirit) and are interested in contributing a square or two, the full details are here. The pattern for the square is in Larissa's book Knitalong (which I highly recommend, and not just because my skull meathead is in it), but there's also a link to it from her blog post.

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Where is My Mind? Where is My Mind?: The Pixies, "Where is My Mind"