blackmoondog

Now that it has been a week since I last blogged, I'm finally back to fill in the rest of the story. There won't be nearly as much detail as the first two posts but better fewer details than leaving the ends dangling.

I left off at the beginning of the Opening Reception. All the teachers were introduced and Barbara Walker was given a lovely standing ovation. ST-2 was thanked profusely and Stephanie said "We made this for you. We hope you like it." The thunderous applause gave some indications of how we felt. :) After the presentation part was over, we were left to mingle. Many people left and I'm glad we stuck around to meet teachers, other knitters & the ST folks. The one theme that I'm seeing over and over reading other people's experience mirrors mine: this con was more open & the feeling of connection with others was incredible. We just hung out. There wasn't any separation of the knitterati from the humble students -- and just about *everyone* had someone that they were hyperventilating over meeting. We just wandered up and chatted with Tina & Stephanie (and they were extremely gracious about all the photos) for a while.

I returned to the hotel Thursday night and had less trouble getting to sleep but still woke up at 4am. Since I was not the only one awake, we decided to hop on MAX and hit Voodoo Doughnut. The full moon was lovely and I did indeed get my maple bacon bar. It was full of NOM and then some.

First up on the conference agenda Friday was picking up a ticket for the Guiness World Record Attempt. The previous world record was set in Australia by 256 knitters. The Sock Summit crew had 1600 tickets to give out for our attempt. We had to knit for 15 minutes straight on two straight needles. At noon, I booked it over from my class to get a seat in the ballroom and randomly ended up sitting next to Celeste from Loop and Leaf in Santa Barbara. The Oregonian (Portland's newspaper) reported that we officially had 935 knitters present. In true Canadian form, Stephanie asked that we apologize to the Australian knitters for potentially blowing their record away. :)

Because I was worried about having enough room in my suitcases, I left my books home and skipped the All Authors book signing Friday afternoon. There was a pang of regret there but it was overshadowed by the fear of not having enough space to bring home the yarn & fiber I bought at the marketplace.

Friday night was the Sock Hop and we arrived after a lovely dinner at Pastini's Pastaria. Mmmm... butternut gorgonzola ravioli in brown butter sage sauce. Also, what is it with Portland & hazelnuts?? Two of the three dishes at Pastini's had them and they were offered with my salad at Burgerville. I'm not complaining, as I quite like hazelnuts but I found it a bit odd. Anyhoo, the Sock Hop was a hoot. Complete with ladies in poodle skirts, a hula hoop contest, and a couple of Pink Ladies. I had no problems getting to or staying asleep Friday night. :)

In the interest of not having a huge post here, I'm going to close the curtain on Friday and pick up with Saturday next. I think I will talk about all the classes in a single post. We'll see how it goes. I'm being paged for bed time duties now.