I voted

In honor of the first-ever Sock Summit being held right here in our own beautiful state in Portland, August 6 - 9th, Ravelry is holding a contest for dyers of hand-dyed sock yarn. I voted for a skein in each category, including but not limited to Kettle-dyed, primary, random striping, and others. There are some gorgeous yarns in a variety of colors all skillfully hand-dyed by very talented dyers. This beautiful skein is dyed by the people at Frog Creek Fibers who can be found at http://www.frogcreekfibers.etsy.com/.

It sounds like Sock Summit is the brain child of Stephanie Pearl-McFee and Tina from another Oregon celebrity, Blue Moon Fiber Arts. This is such a huge event that registration for classes crashed the server and once it was back up and running, it sold out pretty much right away. Registration for classes has been closed for awhile but anyone can attend the Marketplace at the convention center where many yarn vendors and others from all over the world (there is a vendor from Britain) will be selling their wares. I plan on going up to Portland on Saturday morning just to check out the Marketplace. After looking at the yarns in the contest on Ravelry, I can't wait to see them in person! My other new favorite, Three Irish Girls, will be there.

The mailbox is still empty so I've been working on my summer sweater and as par for the course, I've made a pretty big error. I was supposed to begin the body increase at 7 inches up but knit all the way until 12 inches before I realized. I do not want to pull out all the tedious stockinette so I've done a quick and dirty increase at 12 and will still go ahead and begin the arm-holes just past 14 and see how it goes. Knitting in the round makes these 'design-element' changes a little more flexible, I hope.