my sock summit adventure, part four

Sunday morning of Sock Summit began with a trip to

Mary had in her wisdom dropped Mike off at Voodoo doughnuts early, and by the time she came back with me in the car, the line outside was long.

But Mike was already successful in scoring some treats for a teacher, Deb Barnhill, who had missed out on the doughnuts the day before.( I think I already told you that Mike and Mary are some of the nices people you'll ever meet.)

 In case you are not believeing your eyes, here's the maple glazed and bacon adorned doughnut one more time:

During the day, I was able to sneak away and check out the fastest knitter competition. It had been going on with different heats for three days, and now I went and checked out the finals.

There were two groups - here's one. One the far right up on stage, Deb Barnhill, recipient of the Voodoo doughnuts from that morning.

Stephanie is holding up the prize -- a set of Signature dpns.

The knitters were knitting on socks in the round, for three minutes, with their choice of double pointed needles or one or two circulars: hope you get an impression in this video:

Two finalists emerged from the groups: Deb, and Abigail, who was on the design team that won the design contest for Fleece to Foot.

When the winner was announced, it turned out that on average, one of the knitters knitted 57 sts per minute, and the other one knitted 56 sts per minute.

The winner was Deb Barnhill.  I do wonder if the Voodoo doughnut she had in the morning had anything to do with her success....

Watching the contest, my hands started itching. If I go again next time, and they have the fastest knitter contest again, I am participating.  I already got me some Signature dpns to practice on. :)

The other excitement that almost eluded me was the Fleece to Foot contest, a take on the usual sheep to shawl contest where teams of carders, spinners, pliers, and knitters will take a freshly shorn fleece,

just the remnants here

card and spin it, then knit it up into a complete garment within 6 hours.

The sock needed to be knitted in parts by several knitters and then grafted together.
This team made it quite far!

I could not hang around to see who the winner was. Here are Tina Newton, Donna Druchunas (I found out much later that she was the judge!) Rachel H. and Stephanie.

On my way back to my booth, I spotted cookie a. one more time, as she was teaching a class in a makeshift classroom.

Oh look, a line formed in my booth. Definitely time to get back to work....Debbie had been holding down the fort for me.

Alas, even the best Sock Summit had to come to an end...I barely had time to look at the sock museum, which had been right outside my booth the whole time! Here's Mike, who with Mary was on duty to pack it all up.

My champion booth helpers, Debbie and Nance, and I managed to pack up the booth within 2 hours.....I really honestly don't know what I would have done without them.

Then it was time to leave the sock summit behind,  and the convention center.

I was sooo tired. But so happy I got to do this.

The next day, Monday, I spent with Sarah and Miles in Portland.

Yep, another post. Hey, I spared you dozens of pictures from the Sock Museum!