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Sock Museum Day Two

As of last night all the socks are claimed by knitters who are casting on our Sock Museum dream.

So now the next step (besides the knitting and displaying and importing information, photos, creating tags and…) and that is for everyone to contribute ideas. What do you feel should be here? We know of quite a bit more that should be here but there truly are only so many hours in the day do no matter how hard we try to create more or how delusional optimistic we are.  Creating this together in research, ideas and knitting makes it all of ours and a pretty wicked kal.

Doing the research is quite enlightening,fun and can lead you down a windy fascinating knit path.

The historians we had work on this added what they specialize in and that is mostly western. It was and is our hope that our very large ( we know) global community of sock knitters will be inspired to bring in their own cultures or better yet pick one that you are not familiar with and get familiar. Kind if a where in the world sock game. Who wore what, where and when on their feet and how did they knit them. Oh and out of what?

That is just on the historical and cultural significant end of things. Is there a sock that you think was iconic that you do not see? I thought of several this morning from the past six months or so.

Also consider sock fashions and trends.

So many socks so little time… The Sock Museum will be growing, expanding and appropriately be a continued WIP.

Please brainstorm socks, and submit your ideas, they will go to our board and we will get back to you asap.

ok, I am off to find my kilt hose book. I know I had it last week where did I put that thing?

p.s. It is in the plan to make this an exhibit that is museum quality and can be available to be shown. We are still working on this aspect ( it is a lot of work).

p.p.s. Thank you Candice Gansen for such a lovely Sock Museum site. We love it!

Surprise! It’s a Sock Museum

(ST-1 is just getting so much done that we shock ourselves.)

Another chunk of the Sock Summit fun and games are up and running, and this one is for everybody, whether you’re involved with the Summit or not.  The Sock Museum is live (in no small part, thanks to the generous sponsorship of WEBS and Blue Moon Fiber Arts. We love them.) In this section, you (or your local knitting group), and we think this would be a blast to do as a group, can sign up to knit a sock from history (recent or long past) to submit to the Museum.  Once submitted, the socks become part of the Museum, which will be present in person at the Summit, as well as on-line for all to see.  We’ve included a “starter list” of socks, but are actively seeking the input of knitters worldwide, for additional projects.  Read about it here, sign up if it sounds like fun, or submit a sock you’d like to do that you think we’ve missed. The Museum is intended as an ongoing WIP so feel free to contribute your ideas.

Have fun (and yeah, time is a little short. Thank the server.  It’s now not just the fun of submitting a pair of socks, but a race to get them done.)

We think it’s going to be a blast. 

Dyeing For Glory

Like it was yesterday…

I remember the first time I put dye on yarn.  Well actually, the very first time it was roving not yarn.  Initially I thought the best fun was mixing the dyes together in a cup to recreate the colors that were swimming around my brain. It is what I thought… until I poured it onto the roving. (It makes me a little weepy thinking about this obviously it has been awhile.)

Anyway I poured the dye on and watched as the wool happily absorb it. I watched the color slowly spread and the farther it went from where I poured it the lighter it was.

I found this beyond exciting and could barely keep myself contained. So I mixed up more dye again and put the next color on.( And you know what? It did it again) I decided at the very last second not to put it right next to the first color but a bit away and watched as it did it’s sexy absorption dance just as the first color did, with it’s own special hue, of course.

This was crazy cool and as lovely the first one and I was happily watching, zoning a bit on it and completely unprepared for how my entire world was about to change. The defining moment that pushed me head first into coloring fibers was when those two colors met and mingled and gave birth to not one more color but several. Color magic right at my fingertips. I was over the moon with joy.

I was not completely new to color as an artistic medium of expression. I painted a bit and did this or that but nothing like the display on that strip of roving. There is just something so very different for me when you paint color on fiber. It’s the texture and the chemical make up and how they all work together. How they feel in your hands and finally what happens when you knit with them.

With wool as my canvas and dye my paints I jumped head first into the dye pots and have not looked back since.

I dye when I am inspired, I dye when I am stuck or thinking or need to work through something. I dye when I am happy,and when I am sad, really no emotion is safe from the dye.  I dream of color and see colorways everywhere.

I love dyeing. I love dyeing fibers. I am honored to be a part of a growing community of such creative and gifted artists that share this hued passion (obsession) of mine.

One of the greatest joys in the past few months is the building of the Sock Summit Marketplace with my friend Debbi Stone aka Cockeyed.  We have met (virtually so far) so many talented fellow color obsessed souls.  We are going to have some serious fun in August. Look out Portland because not only are you going to be inundated with sock knitters you are also going to bathed in color by some of the most creative dyers gracing the planet.

Keeping with this color, fiber and community theme we are taking this celebration of color world wide to include and share a bit with those knitters that cannot make it to Portland in August.  We have teamed with Ravelry to bring you Sock Summit 2009 Dyeing for Glory Contest. We are launching this today and you can read about it here and on Steph’s blog and of course on RAV.

The rules and regs and details of how this is all going to work are all spelled out quite nicely for you and are posted on Ravelry.

There is also a thread started in the Sock Summit group so you can keep updated there.

Thank you Casey, Jess and Mary Heather for helping us make this color dream a reality.

Ready, Set, DYE. ( ok Dye then set)

Registration Update

We sent an email out yesterday that had the letter below in it to everyone on our mailing list and to all who we have listed as registered.  You see thanks to the Great Sock Summit Server Crash of 2009 we all are having several recurring nightmares with revolving themes all involving large numbers of confused and unhappy knitters.

We are doing our dead level best to make sure we have reached out to everyone who might have a registration issue.

I know we said it in the letter below but I am going to emphasize it (probably over so) again.

Please check make absolute sure that you in fact did receive a confirmation email with confirmation numbers on it for everything you registered for.

If you have that information you are golden no need to contact us. Don’t get me wrong we love to hear from you but the inbox is a wee bit of a scary place these days. So many sock knitters so little time.

Steph and I are working on getting the shopping cart up and the Sock Museum KAL so look for those really soon.

Also, the market place is coming together so beautifully and honestly, exceeding even my wildest dreams which is no small feat.

Ok… off to help pack for Black Sheep and to the bank to get the cash for the cash box which yours truly spaced out yesterday. (I have SS09 brain, blue moon is being very patient with me.)

Dear Everyone,

As some of you may know from experience, the sheer numbers of avid sock knitters who attempted to sign up for the Summit sort of… well.  Fried our server.  Things got up and running again very quickly, but for about a half hour there, things were nothing short of dodgy.

We can’t apologize enough for this, and we’re sorry not just for all of you, but for our staff and friends who have helped us manually process all of the errors and corrections over the last few weeks. We totally owe them socks (and probably hard liquor, but we’re not giving them that until after the Summit.)

We believe at this time that we’ve handled everything in our inbox. If you haven’t heard from us, then please write again to .  (There were a few people we couldn’t reach due to incorrect emails or phone numbers, so please, please write again before thinking we’re not happy to help.)

In addition, we want to stress that you need confirmation numbers to check into the Sock Summit.  If you experienced a problem at registration and didn’t get those confirmation numbers, you need to write to us, so that we can confirm you’re registered, and send you the numbers.  If you did not see confirmation numbers, you may not be registered.  We’ve been doing our level best to see everyone through this happy, and we’ll do our best to help you too.

In addition, because we’ve been using the few returns and cancellations we received to help solve problems, there are very few classes to put up for grabs.  As we can see no reasonable way for thousands of knitters to compete for a few spots, and we are helpless in the face of the unbelievable mass of all of you, we’re not going to re-open registration. If any spots remain open at the time of the Summit, knitters will be able to sign up for them at the registration desk.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

ST-1, ST2

and the dedicated (but tired) team that backs them up.

Sock Summit meeting 4,723…

There are meetings and then there are meetings. There are the necessary more formal business type meetings like the convention center meetings and exhibitor meetings, lawyer meetings, web meetings, accounting meetings and hotel meetings with good people doing their jobs and helping us do ours.

Then there are the meetings with the team I usually work with in relationship to all things Blue Moon. They are all awesome people who are great at their jobs and really fun to work with. The fun thing is pretty essential for me on the creative end of things.  So of course when needing these jobs done for sock summit we would bring these people in to help. 

Our graphic team is Cassie Caldwell and Tim Bergman. They designed the sock summit logo and have put it in on everything we thought we could get it on without feeling like we look as obsessed by it as we are.

We really love the logo that they came up with for us and all of it’s little parts and pieces. They are also responsible for all of the website graphic and look. Tim and Cassie are very creative, know their stuff and so much fun to work with. We really love working with them.

Another really great team are our printers, Randy and his superb crew at Brown Printing. Actually Randy introduced me to Tim and Cassie. He thought we would be a good match and boy was he spot on. We all enjoy and respect each other and then the work follows pretty effortlessly from there.

Yesterday afternoon we had a meeting to work on the show brochure,name tags… .  Debbi and I (cockeyed the sockateer and your vendor goddess) met with Cassie (Tim is teaching at PSU) and Randy at Brown (where they have printing presses and it smells like ink and is oh so lovely if you like words and graphics). They are also green and responsible. You can check them out here; http://www.brownprn.com/

This was the first time that Debbi and Cassie had met and I was really looking forward to it.  You know in that way where you have two people you care about and you know they will really like each other. So I arrive and of course everyone is already there because now I am that “late” person.  I have decided to look at it as I am on time, they are just a wee bit early.

Anyway I walk in the door and this is what I see.

Debbi on the left, Cassie on the right, a pretty well matched team don’t you think. Made me feel a little great about my people skills. Honestly it cracked me up all day and truly, you could have knocked me over when I walked in that door yesterday and saw that vision.

It was a very productive meeting. We got a lot done, the show book is going to be great and Randy is helping with all sorts of things paper and ink-wise.

Two of my favorite people got to meet and well, you see.  You can’t really see it here but even the nail polish color was the same.

All in all, a good day.