The defeat of the postal strike

Once upon a time, in a land far far away from me, but possibly quite close to wherever you are, there was a most magical and marvellous occurrence where socks from all over the land congregated together, and brought their knitters along too.

They called it (cue hushed and awestruck tones)

Sock Summit

And it was good. At least, every blog report that I read about it said that it was amazing and wonderful and the best thing since self-striping sock yarn. And I was sad because I missed it, and possibly even entertained a slightly pouty expression for a moment or two, because all the fun knitterly things seemed to be happening a whole ocean away.

Happily though it seemed as if those who went to Sock Summit had not forgotten those left behind; they wrote blog posts and took a gazillion pictures. And then with characteristic generosity, Marisol hosted a competition.

Question 1 - how many skeins of yarn did she acquire at Sock Summit? I thought very seriously about how many skeins of yarn I would have come home with if left at Sock Summit for the full four days, and halved it to get my answer of 29 - Marisol is much more restrained than me and came back with a respectable 37.

I may have underestimated her yarn buying stamina - but it did make me the winner (yippee, squee like a five-year-old) and on Monday morning the parcel defeated the seemingly never-ending postal strikes and arrived on our doorstep.

By the time I got home, H was at art class and I think I showed incredible restraint in waiting to play lucky dip with him - and here it is:


From back to front; the pattern for Orion's socks, a Blue Moon pattern for the socks on the Sock Summit badge; the show guide, which I read, dream about, and bookmark all the adverts; a Sock Summit pad, more on which later; a Sock Summit badge; and .... yarn!!! Paca- Peds alpaca sock yarn for fair isle, together with the Diamond Checkmate sock pattern. The skein is actually two skeins swirled together, the dark teal and the cool rainbow colours and together they will make a wonderful pair of socks.


This is the inside of the Sock Summit note pad - how clever is that, lines for your notes and squared paper to sketch charts - I wish I'd had it on the train today when I realised that I'd forgotten both the pattern book and the photocopy of the pattern book, and had to try to reconstruct from half a pattern repeat!

I think it's all wonderful and I'm so glad it made it through the strike intact - thank you Marisol, it is a fabulous treat :)