Summer Travels and the Sock Summit

It has been an amazing summer. I have had the privilege of returning to one of my favorite countries, Spain; I visited Morocco, France, and Guatemala for the first time and I ended my two months of travel at the Sock Summit in Portland, Oregon.
There are so many pictures and so many stories so at the risk of boring all my readers :) I will just talk about the Sock Summit and return to the other places in the future.
It has been a week since I returned from Portland and I still feel "homesick." Portland has been added to my list of favorite cities and the Sock Summit is a yarn event I am determined to do again.
Six thousand knitters, crocheters, and spinners attended the 2nd Sock Summit. The picture above is just part of the line waiting for the marketplace to open on the first evening. Lovely yarns and fibers from large and small companies, mostly indie dyers, tempted us in each aisle. I was so overcome with excitement I forgot to take pictures. It was awesome and overwhelming.
I not only bought this gorgeous yarn , I expanded my Signature needle collection.





In addition to the marketplace there were 50 or more different classes on knitting, dying, spinning, designing and anything to do with fiber and socks. I took a Darning class in hopes of repairing some of my handknits, a class on sock design with JC Briar (very infomative) and a class on "beginnings and endings" with Ann Budd (fun!).


Many of us made and brought stitch markers to swap. My dear husband helped me make 91!

Here are some of the stitch markers I collected in the swaps. Many of the markers represented the knitter's state or country, some were just creative and pretty. I almost don't want to take them off the holder and use them.

The Sock Summit was an amazing experience made even better and more memorable because I spent it with my daughter. We found great places to eat, toured the International Rose Gardens, saw a little of Portland and oooed and ahhed over the yarn. She's an incredible knitter and a lot of fun.
More about Portland next time.