At the heart of it all.

Today in about four and a half hours we open registration for Sock Summit 2011.  I would be lying to you if I said I was not nervous - I am - but I’m also very excited.

I was sorting through my thoughts and feelings figuring out what I wanted to say here today and then Steph read me this email that came into our inbox yesterday:

Hi!

I’m not sure if you can respond to this, but I just wanted to say Thank You.

It seems like such a tiny thing to say, considering the hours/weeks/months
this takes to put together.  But there is absolutely no price I could put on
the ways my life was touched by SS09, on the new friends I made with whom I
am still in constant conversation and contact, and most importantly I wanted
to say that the past 2 years have been so full of remembering SS09 with
delight, wondering about and then anticipating SS11.....  For every hour you
all have worked on this, I have been filled with delight for at least 10
times that amount.  And I know --- that’s a LOT!

Because I’m on the east coast, I don’t get to come to most of those other
cool things, the sock camps and all.  But I wanted to let you know that I’m
an Episcopal priest, and I am sending you the Holy Registration Vibes
starting now, throughout the week.  I couldn’t care less what classes I get
(well, OK, that’s a little bit of a lie...!) but truly, what you do is to
create a community that has deep joy at its very center.  It’s a community
that did not end two years ago.

I think what you do is holy, bringing together people and passion.  And I am
grateful.  And a little teary tonight, as well.
Must be after my bedtime!
Did I say thank you?

Thank you, C, I for speaking my heart and mind so eloquently.

I hope everyone gets exactly what they want. We did try so very hard to make it so this was possible.

Sock Summit Registration Announcement

After a whole mega ton of coffee (sorry kidneys) not enough sleep, learning a whole lot of new things about importing/exporting large amounts of data and just how many ways you can do this, not enough sleep, more coffee, proofing, a wee bit of hysterical laughter, editing and proofing again all while on the phone with Steph or sometimes Stephen (I lovingly think of them as my Ste’s) we are here at registration announcement day.  I kid you not.

The letter below is about to go out to all of you lovely knitters on our mailing list.

Ok. Nap time right?

Dear Knitters,

The Sock Summit Team would like to announce that registration for Sock Summit 2011 will take place Wednesday, the 4th of May at 12:00 pm PDT. 

A very great many changes have been made to the registration process this go round, and all of them have been designed to make registration faster, easier, smoother and not melt down any servers anywhere no matter how many knitters try to do so at the same time. As a response to the number of knitters who didn’t get spots last time, this year, we’ve added more classes and more teachers. We find all of this terrifically reassuring, and hope that you do too. 

While you get ready for registration, please spend some time perusing our amazing selection of Teachers, Classes and Events, and have a good look at the schedule.  Monday, instructions and a walk through for registration will be posted on the registration page of our site, and we hope you’ll have a good look at that too, so that you’re ready when we go live.

As always, it’s an honour and a privilege to work for all of you. Running a sock conference is an unlikely and wonderful job, and we’re grateful that we get the chance.

With many thanks,

Tina Newton, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee and our exhausted head-geek and ST-2 Stephen Houghton

Sock Summit 2011

Wow, and you know, that might just sum it up for me.  Wow!  It’s been about 3 hours since we launched the update to all of the happenings (well, not all, we still have a few surprises tucked in our cuffs) of our second little sock knitting party and I still feel a bit dizzy with it all.

Everything is looking as it should which for a non-techie always seems a bit magical. I still think there is some little person in there making all that code jive. He does all this dressed in a tux grooving to Al Green. 

Any way this is all the not so short version of saying:
WE ARE LIVE!!!

We have our teachers and all the classes this talented knitterly group teach.  There are some crazy cool classes, twinkle toes, tubular bind off and pretty much anything Judith teaches.  We feel like if it has anything to do with sock knitting we have got it here.  You know, the whole time Steph and I were deciding on classes and working on the schedule (let’s hear it for Post-It’s of Power and Filemaker database), we kept lamenting (ok, whining) over the fact that we would not get to take any of these.  It cracked me up so much that really what we both were saying was, “Hey, I really want to go to Sock Summit”.  I think that’s a good sign.

The exact same thing happened as we were mapping out the Marketplace floor and looking at the array of artisans coming and what their craft or specialty is and then where they should go.  It’s a bit like putting together a puzzle. I think the marketplace is our version of Joseph’s Techniclolour Dreamcoat.

As we are puzzling this all out and assembling both, Steph and I often stop and appreciate where we are.  We are two very lucky women to be working with so many talented quality people.  This well spun,firmly knit community is what makes this all so wonderful, what feeds us down to our warm woolly clad soles.  All of you, from our generous supportive sponsors, honestly your faith in us is quite humbling, to our loyal capable hard working staff (again, humbling), every single volunteer who gives of themselves and lastly but in no way least every single knitter takes part in our ever expanding sole searching journey without whom none of this would be possible.

As always, if you have any questions please email us from the contact us page of the Sock Summit site.

Here we go again, knitters!

P.S. It’s nap time, right?