The last weekend in July was Sock Summit 2011. The second one ever held, the first being in 2009. There will be a next on and it will be in 2013. What is sock summit you may ask? It is the celebration of sock yarn and handmade socks. Not all sock yarn is turned into socks, it is a good yarn for all kinds of projects. Personally I have used it for socks, shawlettes and baby items. It comes in all kinds of fiber blends and colors. I had a lot of fun at Sock Summit. I spent 4 hours helping at a booth there. It was fun talking to the people, I did not personally sell anything but the booth owner did make sales. The booth I was in was number 1025 there were only 2 other booths beyond us and I think the booth numbers started at 1. Some booths were big enough to take up two or more spaces. They all had something in them that either was yarn or something that you would use with yarn. My favorite was the display models of projects. I saw some wonderful shawls on display in booths and on people. Alicia, Serra and the babies went with me and they got to look around more than I did. By the time we left Sock Summit Alicia had decided she wanted to learn to spin. So Sunday we spent looking for items to make her a spindle. Looking for spindle parts is kind of like going on a scavenger hunt. We went to a craft store to find a stone doughnut for the whorl and found one and we went to hardware stores to see if they had a wood molding or faucet handle that would work for a whorl, didn't find anything suitable. We went to World Market to find chopsticks to use as the shaft and found them. Went back to her house, put them together and I had Alicia and Serra spinning by the time I left for home.
On the other spectrum of crafting, yesterday I went down to the Polk County Fairgrounds and entered a skein of yarn and a shawlette I made. The Polk County Fair is smaller than the Marion County fair it looked like to me. I have not attended Polk Co Fair since I was a senior in high school. I hear they will have a carnival and a rodeo. Of course there will be 4H and FFA projects of all kinds. I am looking forward to seeing all the people and animals. There is a category in textiles that I want to learn and enter next year. It is called Chicken Scratch. It is a type of embroidery, like cross stitch only with more stitches. Instead of making crosses you make asterisks. Instead of cross stitch fabric you do it on gingham. It looks interesting, I saw a pillow at the fair turn in, I only saw a little of it from a distance, so will look for it when I go to the fair. I heard there will be a Chicken Scratch demo on Thursday so want to go and see that.
I am still working on my Summer flies shawl and will have to frog part of it and redo the last few rows as I ran out of yarn. I really need to get this shawl off the needles so I can use the same needles for the next shawl.
I started a sock project, 2 socks on one circular needle. They are footie type socks and cuff down, I feel like I make good progress everyday once I got them cast on properly. The cast on was really hard for me as I had a video to teach me not a person. I think these socks will be really pretty as they have lace on them.
I have done little spinning, just working on some Yarnia yarn. Plying the yarn to make it easier to knit and then will pick a couple of shawls one to keep and one to donate to Blessed Arts. More about Blessed Arts in the next blog.
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