Portland Sock Summit Day 5

This was a big day. What I did not tell you about the night before is that I sold my Sunday class Textured Colorwork with Chrissy Gardiner for a prawn & scallop dinner to a nice young man Ben. Why would I do that? Cause my class started at 9am and well, I was going to Barbara Walker's hotel room at 10am! The Knitmore Girls scored an interview with BGW and there was not going to be anything that could have stopped me from being there.

So I packed my two BGW books that I brought with me to get signed and off we went. We arrived at the hotel and when I say we, I mean Jasmin & Gigi (The Knitmore Girls) and Chloe, Maribel and I. Now remember yesterday when I saw her in my class with Meg Swansen and took a picture, I cried? Well she opens the door and saw all five of us and sees me, she says, "Oh my there are a lot of you" I reply quickly with, "I promise I won't cry today," cause I am real witty! We all file in to the room, Barbara gets comfortable while Jasmin sets up the equipment and we were all just waiting for BGW to start speaking and impart all her wisdom upon us and she did.





Once Jasmin asked her pre-determined questions she asked us if there was anything we wanted to ask her and my mind went blank. The only thing I could think of was "Chloe has a great question!" And it was a great question, you have to listen to the interview when it comes out because she answers a question that is asked on Ravelry every day.

Now that the question and answer portion of the visit was over I had pulled out my books for her to sign and she did graciously.





Then Jasmin leans in and says, "Isn't there something else that you would like her to sign?" Jasmin put me on the spot and BGW looked at me for the "something else" to sign. So let me go back a few days and explain. Since we took off from San Jose, we have been chatting about this interview, what was going to be asked, speculating where the interview was going to take place, what we would say to her when we met her, so on and so forth. I had a silly idea that I was going to have BGW sign a part of my body, possibly my ankle or foot and have that permanently tattooed on me. This idea started as a joke, but I started to seriously consider it for a few days. I thought what would Sensei say when I came home and my ankle says Barbara Walker? The idea was great fun to imagine how she would react and what she would think and then reason got the better of me (the same reason that stopped me from running up to Meg Swansen and hugging her when I first saw her) and I decided that the tattoo was not a good idea. Besides, how would I feel if she said NO!?!? I would have been shattered. So I quickly explained the idea to Barbara and she just giggled a bit and smiled but still had the pen in her hand. I think she would have done it, I really do.

Barbara G. Walker is one of the most interesting people that I have ever met. I learned so much from her and I did ask her a question that I am not sure we were still taping, but I asked how nice it was that Meg and her were at SS09 and I asked if they keep in touch much. To my surprise BGW said that was about the 2nd or 3rd time they had been in each others presence.
The five of us gathered up our things and BGW hugged each of us, we said our goodbye's and walked on air for the rest of the day.

The last SS09 event was the Luminary Panel. The Panel was moderated by Stephanie Pearl McPhee (The Yarn Harlot) and Tina Newton of Blue Moon Fiber Arts and the consisted of Lucy Neatby, Cat Borhdi, Deborah Robson, Anna Zilboorg, Priscilla Gibson-Roberts, Meg Swansen, Babara Walker, Judith Mackenzie-McCuin and Nancy Bush...WOW.









This was the second best thing about SS09 for me. Lots of laughs, lots of wisdom and a bit if regret on my part for not listening to a certain friend who told me to take a class from Anna Zilboorg (I love this woman!) Also, since I am not a spinner I have not had much knowledge of Judith MacKenzie-McCuin, but she is a very lovely woman, very classy. One of the many memorable comments from the panel came from Judith. When asked about how large your stash is and how to deal with the possible guilt that comes with a large stash her reply was, Julia Child says that every chef needs a well stocked pantry when inspiration hits so do not be ashmed of your large stash, you need inventory for when inspiration strikes. The good thing is, I believe it was professionally recorded the event from the looks of the camera man in the back and I am sure that the DVD will be available for purchase eventually.

The Luminary Panel marked the end of Sock Summit 2009 and it coincided with what would have been Elizabeth Zimmermann's 99th birthday. A cake was presented, we all sang Happy Birthday and Meg cut the cake and served.

For the full set of my Sock Summit photos you can find them here.
The next post will be full of out takes (they will be fun), stuff I bought and stuff I didn't buy.