I’m not sure I can adequately describe my weekend at Sock Summit, and unfortunately I was so busy that I didn’t really get enough pictures to tell the story for me, either.
Wednesday
We were originally scheduled to load-in on Wednesday, but then we had the brilliant idea that if we could possibly get away with loading in on Thursday (the show’s opening day) Chris could get in a full day at the office and avoid using up yet another vacation day. So Wednesday was spent at home, packing everything up, prepping the pets, and hoping that the sun would come out long enough to get the last bit of fiber on the racks dry enough to take with us.
This was was all done in the shadow of the fact that my grandmother had passed away the night before, which pretty much sapped me of every ounce of my previous enthusiasm. It was a day I would have gladly spent quietly somewhere, rather than running around like a crazy person, but you can’t really stop a moving train, so I just kind of kept going down the checklist and putting one foot in front of the other.
It bears mentioning here, that my grandma, Mimi, was a wonderful lady with a sharp intellect and a strong personality. She has been a very big influence in my life, is a big part of my childhood memories, and will be terribly missed. Isn’t she lovely?
Also wreaking havoc on my mental state was the strange coincidence of it all. You may recall that we learned of Chris’ grandfather’s death just as we were getting ready to open our booth at the Columbia Gorge Festival back in April, so this kind of brought that back for us as well. I’m afraid that if this trend continues, I may have to give up on shows entirely..
In any case, somehow I managed to get completely packed, only abut 10 minutes behind schedule, and headed over to pick Chris up at his office. We rolled into Portland around 10:30pm – not too bad really, considering the time of day and the traffic and all that.
Thursday
Thursday, bright and early, Chris and I drove into Portland from his parents house (they live about an hour West of the city and were kind enough to watch the kids for us) and prepared to set up our booth. I wasn’t sure how hard it would be to get into the loading dock and all that, but everything went like a dream and we were loaded in and had the booth completely built with quite a bit of time to spare. We tried some new stuff with the display (namely a whole lot more gridwall) and I really like the result.
I was able to get every bit of fiber I had brought with me out onto that display, which was a huge relief, because choosing which lovelies to hold back would have been agonizing for me.
All day long there was a bit of a buzz going amongst the vendors as people began to notice that the line outside was growing to truly epic proportions. The number of people waiting to get in (for a very short session of shopping) was truly staggering. It didn’t disappoint – as the doors opened, there was a huge wave of people (some running!) and the marketplace was saturated within minutes. There were a few vendors in particular (like GothSocks) with highly coveted products that were immediately swamped and cleaned out, which definitely added to the air of excitement in the room. I think it was a great day for everyone (vendors and shoppers alike) and definitely had us all looking forward to Friday.
Friday
This was the day for the kids to come to to the show. Z came with us at opening, and Alex came in a bit later with his grandma, and we all left together when the marketplace closed at 6. I won’t say it was a bad idea to bring the kids, because I like them to see the booth and the shows that we do, and I think they do too - but I think it was a mistake to have them there for the entire day. They got pretty bored after a while, and were reluctant just to wander around and look at stuff. They wanted to be with me in the booth, ultimately, but you can only fit so many people in such a tiny space, so I felt like I was constantly chasing them off.
After we left the convention center, Chris dropped me off for the night with a good friend who lives downtown so that we could have some fun and catch up a bit. We had a delicious dinner at Justa Pasta (my favorite lunch spot from back when I lived in Portland), and then hit up some late night bar/restaurant places in Northwest until the wee hours.
Saturday
Saturday morning, I woke up at my friend’s place at 6am. I was a beautiful morning, and I felt fabulous and wide awake, so I got myself dressed and decided to walk to the Convention Center rather than wait around for Chris to come pick me up. The walk was lovely and I was feeling fairly smug that I had managed not to get a hangover after all the wine I’d had. It was only a bit later that I realized that all of this good feeling had possibly been due to the fact that I was *still drunk* rather than being in such fabulous condition. After a couple of tylenol and about a gallon of green tea, I was as good as new, though.
Another fun day – I can honestly say a fiber show feels more like a social event than a day of work. It can be tiring, but it is so energizing at the same time to get to hang out with all of these interesting and creative people. I loved seeing all of the fabulous knitwear that walked into the booth, and talking to people about their projects (though it also makes me realize how much I have to learn). I was so glad that many of the participants were wearing nametags, though – there are so many people that I have met in online situations (Ravelry, Etsy) and I have no idea what they look like, and this really helped me identify a lot of people that I might have missed. My husband is awesome sauce and helped enormously by doing a lot of the businessy stuff so that I could do the fun chatty part and walk around a bit.
Sunday
Sunday was another busy day – the marketplace was humming once again, and everyone (including me) was zeroing in on those last minute purchases. You know, the ones you have been thinking about all weekend and now need to make a final decision about, lest you be kicking yourself on Monday that you don’t have it? I didn’t go too crazy – the main thing I wanted had already been secured – the elusive Jennie the Potter Sock Summit Coffee Mug. I already have one of her mugs and it is just the most perfect mug shape ever created, so how could I resist this?
Did I mention this show was super fun? I hope so, because the next part is going to sound really grim. I’m not sure where we got the idea that we could pull this off. Running the booth until 4pm, packing it all up, driving an hour west of town to pick up the kids and the dog (and get them packed) followed by a five hour drive home.
The saving grace was that the trailer was way less full on the way home, so it wasn’t quite as challenging to fit everything in as it had been on the way down. We also sent a box of rovings to Linda at Northwest Wools so that she could re-stock her shelves, further lightening our load. We pulled into the driveway just shy of 1am.




























