Sock Summit Recap: Sunday

The only photo I took at Sock Summit on Sunday was the blurry photo of the Luminary Panel above, but it was actually a pretty jam-packed day, featuring the following:

The Perfect Rib with Cookie A: Cookie A talked about how to make sure that a complicated sock leg pattern flows right into the ribbing. This is something that I admire about her patterns--it's so easy to just slap a 1 x 1 or 2 x 2 rib at the top of a sock and call it done, but the extra effort she takes with the ribbing really adds a little something extra to her designs. This was a one-hour wonder, so it was pretty quick, but she showed us a lot of examples and explained the basics in a way that will be totally usable.

Turkish Stitches with Anna Zilboorg: I could listen to Anna Zilboorg talk about knitting all day long. I didn't have all day long (this was another one-hour class), so it's likely I'll have to follow up by reading her book Knitting for Anarchists. The way she talked about the Turkish patterns made me want to swatch up a bunch of them, in order to really understand the ideas. Maybe someday I'll get my hands on her Turkish sock book Fancy Feet, too (maybe it will be reissued, like Magnificent Mittens, which I have pre-ordered).

The Luminary Panel: The Luminary Panel was pretty interesting, but I was a little bit relieved that E____ had a flight to catch and we had to leave early, even though it meant missing the cake. I felt that it could have benefitted from shorter responses from panelists, although that group struck me as pretty tough to wrangle. I heard a lot of stuff that I found totally uninteresting (how tough it is to be a woman--snoozeville) & a little uncomfortable (why so many white people here?), but I also heard some awesome stuff (Nancy Bush examing kilt hose at Scottish Country Dances). Maybe it was my expectations that were the problem, and I should have expected the panel to go off on tangents, but also I was pretty wiped out by then with a really long drive back ahead of me. I'm not sorry I went to the panel, I just wasn't sorry at all to leave early.

One great thing about the Luminary Panel (and the Sunday classes, now that I think about it), is that I had a lot of time to work on a pair of socks that I started just before Sock Summit so that I'd have something simple to knit. That's the sock, in the photos above (all taken AFTER Sock Summit). I was just done with the top ribbing when we arrived in Portland, and I was close to the heel when I got home. It's the Yarrow Ribbed Sock (Rav Link) from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks. The yarn is Soft Touch Heather Shelridge Farm in Fury. I've adjusted the pattern to be man-sized (no, brother K_____, they aren't for you) and am using a French heel instead of a German heel. They are going to be a great pair of socks, and they are perfect for baseball knitting. As an aside, I wish that I had known that Shelridge Farm would be at Sock Summit, because in the months leading up to Sock Summit, I ordered a LOT of yarn from them (maybe 14 skeins), and I could have avoided the shipping costs. I love this yarn, it's the perfect solid sock yarn and comes in a lot of regular and heathered colors. The socks feel really sturdy, and the yarn is very "wooly". It took a ton of willpower not to go into their Sock Summit booth, and now I'm a little sorry I didn't.

Also in the photo is one of the drawstring bags that I made for Liberty's booth, of which I sold alarmingly few. I don't think I sold a single button-top bag, either. It was a little disappointing, but not a big deal or totally unexpected--after all, I have no brand, and there were a million other bags available all over the place. Now I've got a bunch of Christmas presents (or Christmas bazaar items) already done, so that's not so bad.

So, I think that this wraps it up for my Sock Summit reporting. I really had a great time, and it's made me want to go to Meg Swansen's Knitting Camp, and generally to get more knitting done. As in DONE, not started--I spent most of my knitting time this weekend working on three projects that I haven't though about much at all this summer. They're not much further along, but it feels good to know that I'm working on them again!

Sock Summit Recap: Saturday

Why, yes, it is taking me an alarmingly long time to finish posting about Sock Summit. And yes, the longer I wait, the tougher it is to comment intellegently. So, Saturday . . . what happened Saturday?? I took a full day class with Anne Hanson on Sock Design, and I do have a few photos to prove it. See above--I cast on the toe in the morning, and towards the end of day I had several inches foot! Anne's designs are so beautiful and complex, and (like Marjan Hammink) it's hard to believe that she's only been publishing patterns for a few years. I really wish that I'd sucked it up an finished my Bee Fields shawl to wear to class (and not just because the classroom was chilly in the morning).

This is the class that I was swatching patterns for, and even though I didn't really have as many as I'd liked, I did settle on a design that is starting to take shape. I'm knitting the top of the foot in twisted rib, with a lacy bud pattern from a Japanenese stitch dictionary moving across the top of the foot. During class, we talked about different ways handle designs, what types of patterns look good in which types of yarns, and a bunch of other useful stuff that I didn't write down but that I hope I will remember on an as-needed basis.

I sort of like the way my sock is turning out, but I think that the way the pattern runs into the ribs as it moves across the foot looks a little sloppy. Maybe if I'd framed the bud pattern with a couple of plain knit stitches it would look neater? I think that I need to work a little more of it before I veer from the plan. I went back to the hotel after class and worked on it a little longer, but haven't worked on it since, in favor of mindless knitting that I'll talk about in the Sunday wrap-up. Here's the sock toe as it stands now:

I can't help but think that I'd like the sock more if I LOVED the yarn, which I don't. The yarn is o.k., but I picked it more for stitch visibility and because there were 3 skeins available than because it's a color that inspires me. That's definitely something that I heard from both Anne and Marjan--the yarn and the pattern are really closely entwined for their designs. They have worked collaboratively with dyers to come up with a yarn that suits the design (or even more the inspiration for the design). This medium brown doesn't really say "Lacy Bud" to me, but it's not a bad yarn to work out some kinks with!

On Saturday evening, I went to the Ravelry Meetup for awhile, and met a few new folks who I recognized from online. The main event, though was drinks at the Kennedy School with my college friend B______ and E______, and then sweet, sweet, slumber. I remember when B____ and I used to be able to tear it up--rock shows 'til 2am, then out and about until later. I'm convinced I could still do that, if it wasn't for work and dachshunds interfering . . . .

Sock Summit Recap: Friday

I am sorry to say that I don't have any photos from my Friday class, "Respectfully Ignoring the Rules" with Marjan Hammink. It was tough getting up and out the door on Friday morning after all of the excitement of Thursday (probably combined with leftover fatigue from the heat / lack of sleep the week before the summit). It took a lot of energy to focus on the class, and there was none leftover for photography! I did really enjoy the class. I'm amazed at Marjan's designs, and learning more about her design process was also amazing. It's hard for me to believe that it's been only a few years since she started her business, and it was also inspiring to see her sample socks in person. I've knit her Empoisonnée socks and have her Kiila socks in progress, and I've got a several others in kits or in my queue. And now there will be more, and I want to start them all immediately (if I wasn't still so tired from Sock Summit, and from catching up at work & home).

The rest of Friday is (like much of the weekend) a blur. Right after class came the World Record attempt, and as circular knitting wasn't allowed, I started knitting this:

A simple coaster, using the same pattern as I used here, but with larger needles. I finished it during class on Saturday, and used it immediately even though the ends aren't woven in yet. I think that it's a nice reminder of the Summit, something small but useful.

After lunch on Friday was the author book signing, and the lines were super long. One of my goals during this sock summit was to not waste a lot of time standing in line, and this plan worked out well for me here. I waited until the very end of the signing, and had the four books above signed in less than 15 minutes. However, there was a downside--there were a few of books that I wasn't able to get signed, one because the author had already left, and another one or two because I'd left the book in my room and didn't have time to run back for it. That's the risk I ran, though, and I'd still do it again!

The top photo is ALL of the yarn I bought during the summit, not just the yarn I bought on Friday. I more or less kept to my budget, and ended up with some fabulous yarns from a variety of vendors, and I don't feel overwhelmed by the volume, so I'm pretty happy. For full details on the yarns above, check this link (my Ravelry stash, filtered for the socksummit tag). I was also able to meet the "no excessive line standing" while purchasing--since I spent a lot of time in the marketplace, I just went back later to places that had lines. I spent more on non-yarn purchases than I'd planned--a pair of clogs (tax-free!), and two sets of Signature double points. Yes, two sets.

On Friday evening, E___ and I met up with my college friend B_____ & her daughter for delicious Mexican food and even more delicious gelato. Exhaustion, complete!

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.

A Gigantic Nuclear Furnace

The gigantic nuclear furnace that has been wielding it's power over the Seattle area in the last week has lightened up a bit. It's only 83 degrees in the house right now, and it's been cooling down at night, so it's bearable and I'm back to sewing bags for Sock Summit. I've outsourced my buttonhole problem to a professional, and while I wait for those to come back I've started on some drawstring bags. With a little help (thanks, Mom!), I think that I can get 15-20 of these done by the time I have to leave on Wednesday, without having to call in sick or take any of those stay-awake drugs. And since I just found someone to watch the dogs while I'm away (my original sitter fell through), I won't have to make service dog vests (fake) for them and say that they are for my social backwardsness disorder (probably real).

Now I just need to finish every knitting project I've ever started, clean up the house, and pack, and I'll be all set!

I'm Buddy Rich When I Fly Off The Handle

I was hoping to finish up these bags today, they just need buttonholes. Three buttonholes each, ten bags, shouldn't take more than an hour or so, right? Wrong. The test buttonhole looked great, but the first buttonhole on an actual bag stalled halfway through. The machine kept sewing, but the fabric stopped feeding through, resulting in a huge tangle. The problem is still not fixed, even though I've tried the following remedies with not a single successful test buttonhole:

• Cleaning & oiling the machine
• Changing the top thread (I'm using buttonhole thread on the top, and regular thread on the bottom, but having both threads the same doesn't make a difference)
• Fresh needle (heavyweight, since I'm sewing denim)
• Changing the bobbin
• Rethreading the bobbin for more bottom tension (recommended in the manual)
• Changing the pressure on the presser foot
• Using the manual buttonhole program instead of the automatic program

Needless to say, I've wasted hours, and I'm running out of ideas--or at least I'm running out of ideas that won't cost $50+ (like replacing the bobbin holder) or that will take longer than I have before Sock Summit (like taking it in for service). At this point, I've got my fingers crossed that it's related to it being 85+ degrees in the sewing room, and that when it cools down it will work.

Any suggestions? Before I move from anger to panic?

_________________
I'm Buddy Rich When I Fly Off The Handle: Beastie Boys, "Sabotage"

Won't You Let Me Walk You Home From School

Ah, the double-edged sword of knitting conferences. On the one hand, it's a lot of fun, and there is a lot to learn. On the other hand, there's the homework. I was able to pick up an extra class and a couple of one-hour-wonders in the Sock Summit lottery, so my class lineup is now complete and there isn't a lot of opportunity to procrastinate. Here's what I'm in:

• Thursday: EZ Moccasin Socks (homework above, left)
• Friday: Respectfully Ignoring the rules (homework involves thinking rather than knitting--not really started)
• Saturday: Sock Design (homework above, right)
• Sunday: Turkish Stitches (homework is minimal) and The Perfect Rib (no homework)

The EZ Moccasin Socks class homework is finished, it was super fast to knit because I'm using Cascade 220 superwash. Let's hear it for the speed of worsted! I might try to knit the other cuff so that I'm ready to knit the bottoms of both socks. I have been known to lose momentum on class projects once class is over (though not always), so having both of the socks ready to go could help motivate me to finish them. Are you wondering about the purple item behind the sock? It's my new yarn bowl! I love it--my friend L____'s mother is a ceramics artist (potter? stoneware lady? ceramicist?) and made a few of these using L_____'s specifications. It easily holds the ball of Cascade 220, and has fully contained the yarn tangle that I had to pull out to find the end of the yarn. And it looks a lot classier than the miscellaneous fabric and ziploc bags I'm always hauling around. I was surprised by how much I loved the purple / black among the choices she brought to knit-night, purple's not usually one of my favorites.

Anyway, back to homework. The Sock Design class homework. I could swatch for it indefinitely, and this is really just a start. I'm swatching a pattern from a Japanese stitch dictionary (photocopy in the corner), and there are several others from the same book that I'd like to try out. I may also use something from the Bavarian Twisted Stitch books that a friend in Germany gave to me last year. In both cases, I'm not 100% sure that I'm reading the foreign language charts the right way, but I'm sure I'll come up with something! I'm really into twisted rib, as you can see, so I expect I'll incorporate that somehow.

I don't really mind the homework at all, because it should help me get more out of the classes (and believe me, I didn't always feel that way during business school). I've been in knitting classes before where it would have been better to have homework in advance in order to get to the "good stuff", rather than spending a ton of time winding yarn into balls or knitting set-up ribbing. In most of those cases, the teacher had specific, special yarn requirements so there wasn't an opportunity to, say, cast on and K (or rib) 15 rows beforehand, or even to swatch for gauge. The classes that I'm taking at Sock Summit are more technique oriented, which is why it's good that we're preparing ahead of time for specific techniques. I just hope that by the time E___ and I head to PDX, I've done my homework correctly, and enough of it.

Knitting Math For Fun And Education

500 Days of Summer = About 35 Rows of Sockinette Sock (beginning of movie marked with white marker):

That's a lot more than I expected to get through--I rarely go to the movies, and I don't normally have a project on hand that I can knit for a long time in the dark. I liked the movie a lot, but where is there really a karaoke bar that features "Here Comes Your Man"? And if so, do they also have "Wave of Mutilation" and "La La Love You"? Doolittle is such a great album, I had to listen to it on the way home.

This is a pair of plain socks I started so that I could take them to Boston, and then forgot to pack them. The other items I forgot to take were books (one of which I ordered specifically for the trip) and lip balm. Not as bad as forgetting a hairbrush, but I still missed all of these things. Anyway, the socks are Socks That Rock lightweight in the "Sockgate" colorway, and the pattern is the Slip Stitch Heel sock (Rav Link) from Wendy Johnson's new book. I'm sort of thinking about using one of her other heels, so as not to interrupt the striping so much, but I may knit this heel and see how it looks before changing. Or maybe I can dig out some complimentary solid-ish yarn for contrasting heel--I'm sure I've got something that would work!

For L_______, if You're Reading This

For Liberty: Not that I think you're worried, but I wanted to give you some proof that I'm making good progress on the bags for your booth at Sock Summit. The production line is moving, with pockets applied to 10 bags this morning and a ton of handles cut. Next step--turn these suckas into bags! And I believe that I'm about to rope in another worker or two.

I really want to make more raspberry lime jam this weekend, but since it's so hot I'm going to hold off until tomorrow morning--jam hands and production line sewing do not mix!

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.

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

Purple Rain, Purple Rain

As a follow-up to the Elsebeth Lavold class I took at the Nordic Heritage Museum a few weeks ago, I started a pattern that she put together as part of her exhibit there. I bought the pattern from the gift shop, stopped on the way home to pick up the yarn (Silky Wool, of course), and finished this up earlier in the week. It's a fairly narrow neckwarmer, and as you can see it doubles as an earwarmer (which is easier to self photograph, too). Very straightforward pattern, and a good project to demo the Viking cables without committing to a big sweater. It took about half a skein of Silky Wool, which may leave me with enough to make the matching cuffs that were in the last Nordic Knitting Conference booklet. Although I'm also anxious to work on some socks that I started right after the Lucy Neatby class at Madrona, and to finish up some other projects so I can use tubular bindoff I learned in Jean Wong's class. Too many projects, too little time . . .

Speaking of knitting classes / events / socks, I'm assuming that everyone who lands here as heard about this:

If you haven't heard (or if you haven't already seen the instructor list that was posted earlier this week), go there now and read all about it. Seriously. I'm already getting worried that I won't get into any classes, or that all of the teachers I'd like to take classes from will be teaching at the exact same time, or that I will get into some classes but be woefully underqualified. Or that I'll have to steady my nerves with vodka-based drinks, which will limit my learning potential. But I'm trying to think positive . . .