Sock Summit inner workings

I'm about to give you a sneak peek into what it takes to put up a splendiferous booth display. This one happened to be at Sock Summit in Portland last weekend.

When we arrived, this is what the booth looked like. Tables. Boxes that arrived before me.

I had some amazing help, who immediately set about configuring our shelving, ironing tablecloths, and constructing spinning racks that had no instructions and too many parts.

Hello, back of Trisha's head.

Then came the fun part. Unpacking the yarn. Sorting it by color. Laughing at colorways called, "DUDE. This is gorgeous!" and, "No boys allowed!"

Color order is something that makes sense to me. Most people shop by color, anyway. If you love the color, you'll find something to make with it.

Hello, Yarnista with two hours of sleep.

Hello, Amy and Allison.

You can see that the rainbow begins on the rack with vibrant reds and pinks, and transitions to pinks, yellows, greens, blues, and purples.

It can be a challenge to display things on open-backed shelving. It gives you more arrangement options, but things often commit suicide by jumping off the back and into someone else's booth.

We discovered that several of our lights had broken in transit, which necessitated a last minute sprint to get more.

Lights are incredibly important in this kind of setting. The sodium lights shining thirty feet from the top of a convention center just don't do yarn justice.

Hello Amy, light procurer, shopping bag stickerer.  Amy's husband roasts his own coffee, and made us thermoses of French Press, which Amy carted every morning from her Portland-area home. She also brought a cooler with cream in a glass jar.  And a case of peanut butter granola bars.

The marketplace opened to registered class participants on Thursday night. I decided to brush my hair for the occasion.

When the doors opened, the booth started filling up. I didn't take these pictures, and at the time, it was such a whirlwind, that I didn't get to see everyone who came in. But looking at these pictures now, I recognize many familiar faces.

Look, there I am in the back corner, demonstrating my petite tendencies.

An event like this does not just bring Portland locals. People come from all over the US and Canada.  I can see several people in this photo alone who flew in from the East Coast just to be here.

And now, the answer to a most haunting question. Something not even my mother knew before now.

What would Sharon look like if she were a miner and wore a headlamp to work?

Here's your answer.

Glad I was able to clear that up for you.

Trisha came all the way from Northern Alberta, where it is cold, and where yarn takes forever to arrive. I'm convinced that yarn travels to Northern Alberta via sloth. It just arrives whenever it feels like. And it usually feels like being slow.

Amy didn't know it before now, but orange is her color. She has blonde hair and brown eyes, and it looks gorgeous on her.

Allison, on the other hand, thinks everything is her color.

If you've ever wondered what it would look like if you wore two hats, a sweater, a scarf, and a shawl all at the same time over your regular clothes, here's your answer.

And here's Abigail, taker of most of these pictures. See how the look on her face says, "Hi. What are you doing, exactly?" As if she doesn't know exactly what I'm doing with the camera.

And Audrey, who had just finished knitting this skirt the night before. You can spin it so that any of the colors are in front, and it will go with everything she owns.

I could not have survived without the help of Trisha, Allison. Amy, Abigail, and Audrey. They swooped in from far away regions, said, "We're here to unpack and fluff and lift heavy stuff and bring you coffee and leave notes under your door and write receipts and answer questions and help customers and run errands. And this is going to be SO MUCH FUN."

And it was.

Thanks, dudes.

Prepare yourself now.

Headed to Sock Summit this weekend? Might as well get used to this idea:

Also, shorter online.

So, no need to inform me of this fact, just lower your expectations.

The yarn? Now that, on the other hand, is prettier in person than it is on your screen.

See you in Booth #808!

so, here's me.

Waiting on hold on two separate phones.

Here's me, staring at what looks like gibberish on my computer screen.

Here's me, icing my back, having wrenched it three days ago lifting 6,000 heavy buckets of yarn and water.

Here's me, having just left the studio at midnight last night.

There's my case of glove arm, which looks like a huge bruise on my arm, but isn't. 

And here's some yarn. Mini skein sets, already waiting patiently for my arrival in Portland tomorrow. Cashmere.

Colorways that can never be repeated. Because I don't use a recipe, I don't write down a recipe, I just make pretty stuff to my heart's content, and then some.

Oh, look. I'm still sitting here on hold.

Here's some more info on what's been keeping chained to the dye pots, seven days a week:

So, here's me: excited, tired, crazed, excited, sleep deprived, tired. Excited. If we're lucky, I'll grab a few more photos of what's in store for y'all this weekend at Sock Summit.

And yeah, still on hold.

I hereby declare myself...

The Official Baby Holder of Three Irish Girls.

It was a tough competition, but I decided that Boy Aaron's facial hair situation was just too precarious, that any moment things could go horribly awry in a Unabomber sort of way.  Besides, he's better with the preschool crowd. He can make giant soap bubbles with his hands, and his spitballs are the stuff of legends. Or nightmares, depending on your perspective.

I do like me some babies. This one, Miss P, belongs to Victoria Rothenberg, the owner of The Yarn Spot. I got to hold her to my heart's content on July 4th, when I was there for a trunk show.

Look at that look on her face. Blissed out, snuggling with her mama.

Also, look at Victoria's sweater. I would have stolen it, but she probably would have revoked my status as Official Baby Holder.

There were other babies at this fun party -- twins Nora and Liam, whom we last saw here.

And then, there are my yarn babies, which I also love holding. And I love seeing them adopted by competent, caring moms and dads like these fine people here.

Initially, I thought July 4th would not have been a popular shopping day. But Victoria assured me it would be, because people usually have the day off, and most festivities don't begin until the afternoon. And she was right.

The Yarn Spot gave away prizes. If you wore red, white, and blue, you were entered into a drawing once. If you wore a red, white, and blue hat, you got entered twice. It was fun to see people's creations -- I wish I'd gotten more pictures of them.  (Love the ensemble!)

Here's a baby I gave birth to four years ago. I've held her.

And another who just turned seven. Held her too.

She's such a sweet ballerina. Just beams the entire time.

And this nine year old blondie who's eating me out of house and home. Probably because he's trying to grow a skeleton that will be 6'8". Takes a lot of calories to go from 22 inches to 80 inches in a few short years.

I try to hold him sometimes and fall over. Which he thinks is funny, so he asks me to do it all the time.

Boys are weird, with their spitballs and their lack of affinity for grooming.

As the self-proclaimed Official Baby Holder of Three Irish Girls, I would love to meet you (and hold your baby) next weekend (July 28-31) at Sock Summit in Portland. I'll be in booth #808 anytime I'm not teaching.

Places I would also love to hold babies:

Loops South in Tulsa, OK on August 13th.

Windy Knitty in Chicago, IL on September 17th.

Yarn Harbor in Duluth, MN on September 24th.

Amazing Threads in Maple Grove, MN on October 15th.

Serendipity Needleworks in Tuscaloosa, AL on October 29th (No, the Crimson Tide are not playing that weekend -- we checked!)

I'll bring yarn, you bring yourself and any babies you can manage!

front porch makeover! also, my dog never listens to me.

It all started more than a year ago, when I found this bench at an estate sale. It was solid oak, sturdy enough, but they were asking way too much money for it.

Especially considering that it was upholstered with teddy bears.

Teddy bear tapestry? I think I'll take a pass. It was the end of the last day of the sale, so I offered them $20, and they accepted. I brought it home and it sat on my sunporch. (Three season porch? A porch enclosed with windows? What are we calling these nowadays?)

Someone thought the teddy bear tapestry was quite comfy.

I said, "Horsedog, get off the bench. You're in the way."

To which she responded, "I'm not listening."

"Rosie."

"Yes?" she said.

"Get off the bench."

"You're mumbling, I didn't understand a word you just said," she replied.

Retrievers will play this game all night. Just like they will bring back a stick 650 times without tiring.

They're very good at focusing. Unfortunately, this one is focused on pretending she can't understand me. Which is a tiny bit problematic.

After we played Get Off the Bench, Horsedog until 3:30 am, I decided to call it a night and came back bright and early the next morning.

Have I ever mentioned how much I admire the handiwork of the people who previously owned my house?

Oh, I haven't? That's probably because I don't admire the handiwork of the people who previously owned my house.

This is the kind of stuff they liked to do.

The porch was painted shortly before we bought the house a year ago.

Apparently, primer was too much work?

At any rate, you can't put latex paint over oil-based paint, expose it to heat and cold, and expect it to do anything other than crack, bubble, and flake.

This is what the sunporch looked like after about two minutes with a wire brush.

Classy.

You can see the years of paint underneath. An aging white. Some kind of green.

And the parts that were not flaking still had this...attractive?...texture.

While the entire sunporch really needs to be stripped of all the...awesomely?...textured paint, I have other plans for this portion of the house, and don't want to labor in the summer heat doing work that will only be undone. What I did want was to be able to enjoy the sunporch as long as it's there, and to be able to offer my guests a seat on something not upholstered with children's toys.

After I scraped the obviously flaking paint, I primed and painted over those areas to prevent future problems, and set to work scrubbing the floors and window ledges, which had been exposed to a year of dirt traipsed in by children and large equinecanines.

So, for a day's work and $150, this is where we are now.

The daybed was a Craigslist find, and came with a trundle. I drove about 40 minutes to pick it up, but for $40, I couldn't pass it up.  I painted it robin's egg blue.

The pictures and picture frame are vintage, things I picked up for a couple of bucks here and there at thrift stores and yard sales. Alone, each print is pretty lackluster. But en masse, they become larger than the sum of their parts.

The only new piece in this grouping is the shadow box in the lower left. I put a skein of yarn in it.

I'd be willing to wager that at least 20 of you also have this IKEA chair. I've had mine for more than ten years, and while it's not really my preferred decorating style, it's darn comfy. The lamp was repurposed from another part of the house where it wasn't being loved the way a lamp should.

I painted the IKEA chair white and added a pillow covered with a vintage pillow case.

Print: Yard sale, $.50. Aqua canning jar? Gift from sister.

This coffee table is a very old chest I bought at an estate sale for $10. It has square nails and rope handles, and while someone did a less than perfect job repairing the lid, I like the weathered, grounding feel that it adds to the space. You don't feel bad putting your feet on it.

My mother in law gave me the tin sign on the left -- she picked it up because it says "Diamond Dyes," and she thought I might like it. Which I do.

The bed linens were mine, bought from Garnet Hill a few years ago.

And here's the bench now. I roughed up the glossy surface with some sandpaper, gave it a coat of spray primer, and then sprayed it a cheerful, sunporchy kind of yellow.

I reupholstered the seat with a piece of remnant fabric I bought at Hancock for $2, which just so happened to match these pillows I had. The pillows are from a pink upholstered chair that we have in our break area at the studio, and I was able to use the mate to the aqua pillowcase here.

The artwork above the bench was a message board I bought at a yard sale for $.50. I painted it a color I mixed up from one of the 9,000 swatches I painted on my dining room walls, and then filled it in with vintage bird prints. The prints came from a book I also got at a yard sale.

The side table and linens were repurposed from other parts of my house.

The plants were 50% off at a garden center, and I was also able to use a gift certificate that my employees gave me for my birthday in May. I'm constantly lamenting my lack of landscaping, so it was a fitting gift, one that I'm enjoying every day now.

Astilbe, double begonias, and columbine.

Ideally, I'd like a more interesting rug. But you can't beat refinding something you didn't even remember you had.

I was out in the garage, sifting around for tools. Half the time, I don't even know what I'm looking for, I'm just looking for something. In this particular instance, I was in the garage looking for the kind of sandpaper that I like. 

I live three blocks from one of those mom-and-pop hardware stores. The kind that you go in and three guys named Steve behind the counter ask what they can find for you.  No, really, there are three guys named Steve. And one of the Steves told me to try this new 3M sandpaper that is much longer lasting than the traditional stuff.

And might I add, mom and dad, that every time I go in there, one of the Steves asks if I would like to put my purchases on your account. The first time they asked me that, I looked around. How did they know who my dad was? Was he standing behind me and I didn't know it? I haven't lived in Duluth for a dozen years, how did he know I was your daughter? And also, there are still hardware stores that let people have standing accounts? What is this, the upper midwest?

Anyway, while I was wandering around the garage, I spotted an area rug leaning up against the wall, still in its protective plastic.  Upon closer examination, I remembered that I bought two of them at a home improvement store on clearance For $39 each for use in the studio. I ended up only using one in my office, and the other has been sitting unnoticed for ten months.

The size was right, the price was right, and I won't care if it gets muddy horsepaws on it.

So that's my one day, $150 makeover.  In fact, I'm writing this from the daybed, which is quite comfy.

What do you think?