Believe it or not, the only time I have ever taken a knitting class was at Sock Summit 2009. And I only took 2 classes (you can see my write up here, my very first Knit Picks blog post!) So this time around, I decided to fill my schedule – I took a total of 4 classes, one each day, plus I attended Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s lecture as well. I was very busy all weekend but it was a lot of fun (of course!)
Thursday, I attended Carrie Sullivan‘s Dead Sexy Heels. I really loved it – it was sort of a lightbulb moment when it came to doing heels on socks and I’m already using some of her suggestions on socks I currently have in process, which I’ll show off as soon as I have them done!
I’ve been friends with Carrie for several years so I was so excited to attend her first ever class! She was an excellent teacher & it was great to see her again.
Friday my class was Walk on the Wild Side by Star Athena. See, I have this problem, I love buying beautiful & colorful hand dyed yarn but sometimes I just don’t know what to do with it (case in point, I love my Punky Stroll Hand Paint, but I just haven’t liked some of the patterns I’ve tried with it.)
Star‘s class really helped me figure out the best stitch pattern to use it for – it was very fun. I can’t wait to finish my socks!
Saturday afternoon was Franklin Habit‘s Photographing Your Fiber. This wasn’t a knitting class at all but I learned so much from it. While our IDP photoshoots here are done by our awesome photography team, I like to take my own pictures for Ravelry & blogging. And this class was exactly for that, I learned how to use my little point & shoot camera to the best advantage. I’m very excited to play more with my camera’s settings & using all the tips & tricks he taught us.
I also randomly met Cailyn Meyer in that class – I read her blog & I recognized her little friend!
You can see all of Pencily’s adventures at Sock Summit on her blog as well (there’s also a photo of me hard at work in class).
Finally on Sunday, I took Amy Singer’s Autopilot Socks. Mainly I do boring top down socks so I thought I’d expand to try some more toe-up socks. She taught her tweaked Japanese Short Row heel & man, that was one of the most fun new techniques I’ve done in awhile. We made cute little practice socks during the class & I am definitely going to be using this anytime I do a toe up sock.
And of course, I made a few purchases! Not nearly as much as I did last time, but a few items caught my eye. My favorite wasn’t yarn at all actually – it was my friend Jennifer‘s bag I had to get.
It’s her Ball Sack bag & it’s awesome. It perfectly fits my socks in progress & clips directly to my bag so I don’t have root around in my (rather large) purse to find it. I loved the fabric too, of course! She processes fiber at Fluery Sheep & Wool and sells some of her bags at Lingering Spring.
But I did buy some sock yarn too!
I have an additction to Blue Moon’s Socks that Rock so I had to get one of the special new colorways – Flash Mobbin’. The pattern also came from Blue Moon – it’s Carrie’s Slip Jig Socks. She showed off the finished socks in class & I totally fell in love. The purpley skein in the middle is also a Sock Summit special colorway, Alpha B‘s Luxe B (wool/silk) in Marionberry Coulis. These are going to be some special socks for a dear friend of mine. Finally, I picked up Out of Step Dyeworks‘ self striping cashmere/merino blend in This is Halloween colorway.
I hope if you were able to attend you had as much as I did! It was great to see old friends again & I feel like I learned so much from my classes!
