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Hey, Sis,

Did I lose track of our heritage?  Any reason I would be channeling Swedish?  I ask because, gee whiz!, my Deep Into the Forest Bohus reproduction won the American Swedish Institute award at the State Fair for best example of this Swedish art. I was so tickled, especially as the competition was really outstanding.  There was a lovely example of The Swan and several other sweaters and hats and mitts.   The sweater also won a first place ribbon in the “Cardigan - Limited Colorwork” category.  My first MN State Fair first!

Another nice result - my little Shibui Onesy placed third, which was a pleasant surprise.  The collar really was bound off too tightly (but I’ll take that ribbon, thank you very much).

On the other hand, Karen’s veil didn’t even place.  Supportive friends expressed amazement, but I felt like I’d let Karen down somehow.  I wonder if the judges thought I was trying to trick the system by entering it as “not otherwise specified - wearable” instead of entering it in the very competitive shawls category.  But I would have blocked it differently for that category and it was meant to be a veil, so I didn’t think I was gaming the system at all.

Oh, well, maybe this is life telling me that there was an entirely satisfying amount of joy from the veil already.   I have to agree, now that a day or two have passed.  Would a picture of the veil without Karen under it but with a blue ribbons make me more happy than this one?  Not even close.

I didn’t spend much time at the fair this year, volunteered at the MN Knitters’ Guild booth and then did a couple of hours of touring about, but I always have to catch the crop art.  It is as kitsch, and as political, as can be.  I love biting satire expressed in millet.  My all-time favorite is “Curious George Searches for Weapons of Mass Destruction”, but this year’s “Michelle’s Precious Moments” was pretty darn good. Laura  Melnick captured some of the most priceless Michelle Bachman (our local crazy congresswoman) quotes and paired them with the treacly innocence of Precious Moments sculptures. By the way, these are actual references from Michelle.  You can’t make this stuff up.

I feel the pull of the fair from our house, but I don’t push my luck by trying to get Wilson to go more than once every few years.  That is one of the secrets of our happy marriage, which hits 58 years (29 each) tomorrow.  Once again, the universe is providing me with plenty of joy.

One more bit of crop art joy for you.  Not political, but just amuses the heck out of me.  Have a great weekend.

Love,

Ellen

Dear Jan,

Here is a short story for you.  Ping.  Ping - ping.  Ping.  Ping- ping.  Ping.  With that last one, the story ends happily.

The first ping of the season is the one that thrills*.  There is no way to know if it was a jar of dill pickles, dilly beans, or the pickled beets that sounded it as the vacuum building in the cooling jar pulled the lid concave.  Doesn’t matter once you hear all seven.

Other things that are going on here include progress on my world record breaking knitting, a Noro scarf (that may become something else, watch here for updates), the Onesy Twosy (which ideally I’d finish today, block and sew on buttons etc so I can give it as a baby gift on Monday), brainless knitting on my ‘brainless’ socks, and a class on toe up sock heels with Chrissy Gardiner.

I’ll post on that tomorrow, for now you have a picture of my homework.  More thrills, eh?

I hope your weekend is a thriller,

Love,

Ellen

*Yes, I have a well-documented Low Thrill Threshhold. This is a positive -  I am a cheap date and don’t have to save as much for retirement.

Dear Ellen,

I wanted to show you the beauty I’ve had around me for the latter part of the week and through the weekend.  For our anniversary Dale arranged to have 30 long stem American Beauty red roses delivered to my office.  He’s been doing one for each of the number of years we’ve been married since our first anniversary.  They’re still cheaper than divorce and he’s still keeping up the tradition!  He has managed to pull it off even when you would think it impossible.  I remember getting roses at sea in the midst of a Mediterranean/Persian Gulf deployment on USS EISENHOWER…he had sent silk roses to my stateroom-mate to have them “delivered” to my office at the appropriate time.  And when I deployed for Iraq, they showed up a few days early while I was in training since my flight out was actually the big day and he wasn’t sure they’d let me take them.  The Sergeant Major wasn’t sure what to do, but figured he had to let me have them in my barracks room even though it surely wasn’t “in the program.”  Here they are in my office at the Pentagon on my conference table.  Look at the table too…under the glass is the prayer rug my troops gave me when I left Iraq and my collection of challenge coins.  We in the military trade them…much like you Sock Summiters trade stitch markers.  I’m also including a shot of the lovely bouquet that Vanessa sent to us.  Dale made a fantastic dinner and her flowers were perfect with it.  I had the roses at work till Friday.  A few were just starting to look poorly today, so I broke them down, recut the good ones, said farewell to a few that were over the edge and now have 3 separate arrangements to enjoy.

I also have a quick photo of my Hopeful Booties.  I managed to do a bit of organizing this weekend and found them…and the camera.  Of course the battery was dead, so then I had to look for the charger.  It was only within the last hour that I got the picture.  I suppose I could have used my camera phone, but I haven’t figured out how to get full resolution pictures transferred from it yet.  When I send them as text messages they end up tiny like the ones of the roses.  I’m quite pleased that I got 4 booties from the single ball…one set newborn and one set 3-6 months.  They’re the Cat Bordhi Life Ring Booties and were quite fun.

It’s 20 minutes past bedtime.  I can’t figure out how to make the days longer.  Can you?

Love, Jan

Dear Jan,

Sock Summit exceeded expectations.  It was 4 days of sheer fun.  So much fun I even forgot to eat lunch twice, and that’s saying a lot for me.  I’m home now after a redeye flight (2.5 hours of sleep) and a day of work, but I want to get some impressions down before the memories fade.

So many wonderful things - I’ll try to make it short and sweet, but give you an idea of the ride we went on.  I’m sure a few more photos (especially of stash) will trickle into my next few posts.

By the way, many people (including BothTwins - how cool to meet them!) asked, “Is Twinsetjan here?”  I answered, “No, Twinsetjan is jealous!”  Though I had my fun, I do wish you could have been there.  That would have doubled the fun, as hard as that is to imagine.

I started my fun with dinner with Kris and Wes.  Yummy food, yummy conversation.  Karen has wonderful in-laws.  And yes, Portland is called City of Roses for a reason.

I met the wife of the man whose onesy that he wore as a child was used as the inspiration for the Shibui Knits Baby Onesy I just knit.  She is associated with Knit Purl, one of the fine LYS’s in Portland.  They held an in-store champagne reception for SS attendees which was a lovely add-on.  This is their SS booth.

There were men at the show, and of course men with tools.  I bought some fine knitting tools (square needles and palm needles) from these guys, inventors/developers of each relative type.

I fought crime with Mortaine, creator of Handknit Heroes.

I saw knitting socks on circular needles taken to ridiculous lengths.  That’s 14 socks on one 100″ circ at the Skacel booth.

Needles up in preparation of setting a world’s record for simultaneous knitting!  Check out this photo for an unflattering but documentary photo of me at the event, knitting away happily for the 15 required minutes.  Stephanie and Tina made sure we followed the rules.  Now we await the ruling of the Guinness committee.

Truly one of the best parts of the Summit was meeting internet friends like Jocelyn.  She is absolutely as charming and intelligent in person as she is on her blog.  We waited together to get our Barbara Walker books signed , both of us even more happy to have her feminist writings autographed than her knitting stitch anthology (though I got that signed, too).  Jocelyn later helped me find the right yarn and pattern at the Knitspot and Briar Rose booth (fun to meet the BR dyer (sorry, blanking on her name) and also Anne Hansen!).

We took a break at the Classical Chinese Garden.  Deb, my Minneapolis friend and roommate for SS, seemed in her element here.

Powell’s knitting shelves were jam-packed with knitters.

Barbara Walker’s lecture on how she became a knitter took an interesting turn into how she became a skeptic.  This woman is amazing - reminds me of Aunt Leila with her myriad passions and intellectual power.  She has authored so many ground-breaking books in several areas.  Over and over, she got the biggest applause from the community.

Priscilla Gibson-Roberts’ class on Turkish socks gave me the chance to ogle incredible examples of antique and modern socks from the Middle East.  This pair (inside and outside) was one of my favorites.

But more than socks showed up - look at this clever lady and her crutch cozies!

I hiked in the Hoyt Arboretum while I awaited the Ravelry meetup.  Look, a new (to me) milkweed!

And look, Casey and Jess!  They were super sweet and kept thanking us, very sincerely, for coming.

But the best part of the meetup was connecting with my new buddies, Cricket and Joan.  We hooted and hollered all night.  If you are nice, we’ll let you be part of our soon-to-be-formed Ravelry group, Virtual Cellmates.

On the way home we proselytized for our craft, trying to convert muggles on the light rail.  We considered it a victory when a couple of very hip young men called out “you rock, sock ladies!” as we left the train.

The luminary panel was luminous.  That is Lucy Neatby, Cat Bordhi, Deb Robson, Anna Zilboorg, Priscilla Gibson Roberts, Tina, Stephanie, Meg Swansen, Barbara Walker, Judith MacKenzie McCuin and Nancy Bush. I was especially struck by the humble wisdom of Nancy Bush and Cat Bordhi’s casual, don’t take myself too seriously, vibe.

And finally, we had to go to the airport and come home.  We were exhausted but happy.  Deb and her mom, Judy, were awesome roommates.  We giggled so much, pet so much yarn, bought a lot of it, were awe-struck by knitting goddesses and ultimately saw that the goddesses were all around us and in us.  That was the best part of SS, by far.

Now my inner goddess needs to go to bed.  I’ll have some more soon - I haven’t even touched on the fun that was stitch marker swapping or stash enhancement, but there is time for that.

Love,

Ellen