Sock Summit

[darkemeralds]

I've spent part of my four-day weekend at Sock Summit 2011. It's a convention for people who knit socks.

I'm not a sock knitter (or wearer, for that matter), and am only a marginal knitter, and I live just up the street from the Oregon Convention Center, so my participation was pretty casual, and I can't give much in the way of insider rapture.

But as a general craftswoman I can say that Sock Summit is a very impressive thing. I took a specialized class ("Cast On Cornucopia") on Thursday, and today I had a chance to wander around the vendor market; both experiences confirmed that creativity is absolutely going off the charts.

People are putting new materials to ancient uses (carbon fiber knitting needles! Plastic drop spindles printed on 3D printers!), and pushing out the boundaries of labor-intensive manual processes like hand-painting fleeces. You can knit with a range of fibers unimagined by the average American knitter thirty years ago (bamboo! hemp! yak!). You can accurately replicate socks worn by 12th century peasants in Norway, and socks worn by rich gentleman-golfers in 1890, and silk stockings from a Constantinople lady's wardrobe in 1500.

And here's the thing: there's not a craft or hobby being practiced today that isn't experiencing the same kind of explosion of creativity, digging into the past, borrowing from the future, leveraging technology, and spreading ideas across the world.

So although I managed to escape the show floor with only one purchase, a handmade wooden tabletop swift of truly elegant simplicity and functionality, I came away absolutely loving life in the 21st century, and glad to be alive in such an exciting time.

Comments

[toft]

Awww, what a lovely post! Thanks, I needed that burst of optimism.

[darkemeralds]

Wandering around a convention hall filled with rich, bright colors, wonderful textures, brilliant ideas, and really nice people was incredibly uplifting. Glad I could share a bit of that.

[rainkatt]

I'm glad you enjoyed the marketplace!

We are currently trying to figure out our next moves, before Anne's event tonight.

Lunch was lovely.

[darkemeralds]

Thank you for fitting me into your busy schedule of visitors and convention-going. It was just wonderful to meet you, and I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation over lunch. I hope we can do it again soon!

[rainkatt]

Oh, yes, I'd love to!

Gah, it's been a busy week.

[lamentables]

\o/

That is all

[roseambr]

Oh, you managed a return visit! How wonderful since we missed out on the market on Thursday. I'm sure there was a ton of things to admire, touch and spark the imagination. I so enjoyed our class and am envious about your return trip. Sounds like it was lovely!

[darkemeralds]

It was! I didn't wear myself out, I saw everything I wanted to see and got some new ideas (I loved the aluminum knitting needles!) and came away with only one purchase, a wooden swift, which I've had in my mind to buy for ages.

[vampirefan]

i'd love to see a picture of the swift! :)

and wow! drop spindles printed on 3d printers? that's awesome!

when i went to a museum here in chicago, there was an exhibit that was all about futuristic type stuff going on and one of them was about printing food on a 3d printer. one of the uses suggested was for space travel. pretty interesting!

anyway, getting back to the sock thing, i really want to go next year! gotta start saving up my vacation $$$

[darkemeralds]

I love the Old Is New Again feeling of using futuristic technology to accomplish age-old tasks.

You have an extra year to save: Sock Summit is a biennial event, apparently, and the next one won't be till 2013. By then I should have my guest accommodation ready, and you'll have a real bed.

Mind you, it'll be a bed-in-a-drawer... LOL!

[vampirefan]

lol!!! omg. now i'm thinking of that seinfeld episode where (which i didn't really watch that much but happened to be one of the eps i caught) where the tall guy decided to rent out his dresser drawers as sleeping space to make money. they show him pushing the drawers closed occupied by chinese businessmen. lol!

and awesome! that does give me enough time to save!

[darkemeralds]

Here's the swift type I bought.

It's well made and elegantly simple--really good design. One of its design "features" is that they sell it with a square of grippy shelf liner, which is remarkably effective for holding the swift where you set it down.

I wound 24 hanks of Rowansoft into balls using my new swift, with perfect results. I'm very, very pleased with it.

[vampirefan]

cool! it's like the one my dad made me! so portable, right? you can break it down?

and that is an awesome idea about the grippy shelf liner! i have a roll of it so i'll be cutting out a square to use it like that! (i currently have a little square in my kitchen drawer for those hard to open jars...)

[darkemeralds]

Yup, that's the stuff!

The swift I bought not only comes apart, but it just slots together without any friction or tools or anything. You wouldn't think it would work, it goes together so almost loosely, but it's a thing of real beauty. It even came with a cloth carrying bag (which fit onto my bike rack when it was time to go home).

Now I can hardly wait to start knitting with the wool I wound. Maybe I'll take a couple of balls of it on my trip and start swatching for my my next sweater, the FLAK.