Sock Summit: Day One

I woke up not having moved AN INCH in my sleep the night before, needless to say, we slept well. We were well rested, and like eager children running down the stair for Christmas morning, we were ready and raring to go! On our way out the door Ginny spotted a skinny short-haired woman that looked remarkably like Jess, of Ravelry fame... and it was!

(puppet BOB in tow).

She hooked us up with her limited stash of Ravelry "Hello my name is..." buttons; the rest would be given at the Ravlery Meet up Saturday night.

On the way to the convention center we stopped for a nutritious breakfast, we knew we'd have a LONG day ahead of us... Quad Shot Vanilla Latte and STRONG brewed iced tea.

Our class with Cat Bordhi was un-fucking-believable. 'Nuff said... but really, we learned an incredible amount of new things, tips for existing things and plan ol' fun ways to describe what we already knew. Cat even taught us a BRAND NEW stretchy cast-off which we are sworn to secrecy until it comes out in the fall knitty.com website. Monica was particularly tickled by the SSK tutorial that made all of the slants in a perfect FLAT little diagonal row, while Ginny is still having flashbacks of her YO realization when Cat taught the REAL way to end a cast-off and weave the tail into the beginning of the cast-off so that no dog-ear shows AT ALL. During the class, we started by practicing our heel turns with a cute little bowl, then moved to baby socks, with our choice of arch expansion. HOW COW.

One of the coolest things about the entire class was that Cat brought every single sock model from the Pathways book. The REAL ones that were used and photographed for the book!!!

She showed us her Spring Thaw sock, and Krista, YOU WERE RIGHT!!!! The arch expansion on the foot of the sock looks exactly the same as you knit it... a runway.

With seconds to spare after Cat's class, we ran to the opening of the marketplace:

IT WAS PANDEMONIUM, thankfully no one was injured or killed like Ginny predicted. While walking around the market place Ginny came across the Knitters XRX booth where, hanging on a giant display were all of the socks that were entered into the XRX sock contest earlier this year. Including Fairbanks own and Fiberista all-star Kate!!! Cat Bordhi was there to gush and stand in owe of its magnificence. Direct quote: "Why didn't we choose this one to win again??? SERIOUSLY!"

After having 2.5 straight hours of mind blowing S.E.X. (stash enhancement expedition), we made our way upstairs to the Silent Auction to kill the 45 minutes before the Opening Ceremony. All proceeds from the donated items for the Silent Auction was to be given to Doctors Without borders, the Yarn Harlot's charity of choice. Monica spotted, what Ginny thought was worthless lump of roving, but turned out to be a membership to the Blue Moon Fiber Arts Rockin' Sock Club 2010 worth $250 smack-a-roos. The bidding at 6:30pm was only at $100 dollars. We both agreed that bidding the full $250 was a good idea for two reasons:

1. We were going to buy it anyway, and if the bid won, all the money would go to the charity.
2. If we didn't win, and someone out-bid us, MORE money for the charity.

Win, win, right?? YUP. Ginny won! A membership to the 2010 Rockin’ Sock Club for the listed price of $250.

SWEEEEEEEET.

At 7pm the masses moved into the ballroom for the Opening Ceremony. Just before heading in, we ran into a fellow fiberista, Gail aka AKMountainGirl. Alaska is truly representing! Inside, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee and Tina the Depraved Dyer took the stage and had us ALL in stitches! (hahaha, Monica’s not mine). She started by reading a decree by the Portland City mayor declaring August 6-9, 2009 as Sock Knitting Week in Portland.

We mingled afterwards, met some more friends, talked with new friends from the day and staggered back to our hotel room to display the spoils of our day, write the blog post and hit the hay.

(Ginny's 2nd mortgage)

Tomorrow: Cookie A, Guinness World Record Break, Book signing, Sock Hop. Ugh.