Sock Summiting

 I've been away for a few weeks now, attending Sock Summit in Portland, Oregon and vacationing in Oregon, Montana, and Idaho. We arrived in Portland on the Wednesday before the big yarn show, after a pleasant couple days of driving through the mountains of Montana, stopping for lunch with friends in Walla Walla, camping along the Deucheutes River, having breakfast in Hood River (and some power shopping there), and taking Historic 30 down the Columbia River Gorge.

 My four boxes of yarn were waiting in my booth. Like magic (and $225!)

Houston was my helper and official photographer during set up. Whenever I needed a 'tall guy' thing done, he was jonnyonthespot.

I was disappointed that the backdrop wasn't black. All other shows I've been to have had black drapes so I got all black boxes and black table coverings. I had this vision that the yarn would 'pop' out of the black. Oh well.

We had picked up shelving and supplies at Target and Ikea (love!) the day before, so were ready to put it all together.

 

 ,  Houston immediately took to the task of blowing up my party legs. I did have a pump but he broke it before she was fully inflated, so had to give her a little 'lip service'.

 

The party legs were quite the hit. I had knit these thigh high leg warmers for Sock Summit out of Bee Bop and I really liked the way the turned out. I had to find some undies for her as she couldn't be nekked. I got these kinda slutty ones at TJMaxx and thought they were just the right amount of trailer trash for her. And they matched the 'Carnival' colorway perfectly!

 

I was totally smitten with these hangers from Ikea. Don't they look like question marks? What to knit, what to knit???

It slowly came together, I got all the samples out, the yarn hung and placed in boxes or retro suitcases, turned on the lights, and was ready for business.

 Thursday afternoon the doors to the market opened at 4:30, with the line stretching at least a block long.

 The doors opened and the onslaught of knitters ran...

and I mean, ran to the

Anonymous Popular Booths

and it wasn't mine.

I have to be honest, Sock Summit was not all puppies and kittens and unicorns and rainbows for me. I dyed and skeined and dyed and fussed and dyed and packed and fretted on what to send/bring for months ahead of time. I told someone that this show was harder to get ready for than when we packed the family up to spend 6 months in Australia! 

I'm not the yarn dyer de jour at the moment and those booths were a mob scene. I read on ravlery (knitting site) that some booths had folks grabbing armloads of yarn, scratching and elbowing their way in with skeins flying overhead. WOW! One booth was left with no yarn in it. But I just sat there and knitted away (for 3 1/2 days), put on my smiley face and greeted the knitters with my can-do attitude. I didn't lose money, so that's a good thing.

 

Folks were really caught up in the magic of SS. There was an organized 'Flash Mob' with over 1000 knitters swinging their yarn in the air.

 

And lots of knitters got to knit on the World's Largest Sock.

 

There was even a 'Fleece to Foot' challenge where they sheared 4 sheep an  6 teams spun, then knit a pair of socks. There were over 60 teachers, 130 classes and a bunch of vendors. 

After packing it all up Sunday evening, I was happy to retreat to our friend's farm nearby to relax and begin our vacation. Phew!