April 7, 2011

Yarncaching

When it comes time to tell you about Sock Camp, I'm always sorry that we have a media ban there.  What happens at Sock Camp stays at Sock Camp, and that cone of silence is in place because Tina and I love the idea of a place where you can entirely be yourself without worrying about what's going to end up on YouTube. (I assure you, that Marcy showed us all something this weekend that would make the world a better place were it on YouTube, and that JC Briar owns something and used it in a way you wouldn't believe without me showing you the banned photos. Use your imagination, know that it is failing you,  and if I outlive her, someday I'll post them.)


I could tell you about the hats. I could tell you about the tea party, I could tell you about the scavenger hunt or Anna Zilboorg's workshop (I tell you, her brain is a big, broad, trippy, place to hang out) I could tell you how very, very funny Anne Hanson is (I bet you suspected) or I could tell you about the circumstances that led her to I knit a tiny swatch out of 100% acrylic.


I could tell you about my class, which was about sock repair, I could tell you about the food (oh my, the food) I could tell you about Stephen doing a killer job, and Debbi's endless good humour, flexibility and grace under fire, or I could tell you about finding these bizarre tiny chickens everywhere I go, even now, after the camp's done - I could tell you that I've had a sore throat from laughing so much, and that I can't believe the way the Inn staff got into it this year.  (Think costumes.)

It is four days where knitters run the world, and I like the way it looks like that - and I think the Resort at Port Ludlow has finally come to like it that way too. This camp (like other events here) campers yarnbombed the inn.  Little knitted decorations sprang up and were attached to the most wonderful spots.  Knitting from lampshades, around door handles, not just placed there either.  Sewn on.

There was a great moment at camp, when Tina and I are waiting to begin antics and we couldn't find a few campers. When we asked where they were,  someone lifted the tablecloth, and underneath it, was a little clutch of knitters  huddled under the table, using their phones for light while they sewed a big chunk of knitting to the table support.

I almost cried I loved it so much.

It always breaks my heart that we just get things the way we like them here, and they we leave and it all just goes back to being the way that regular people think hotels should look, and I've never understood why they feel the need to take the yarn bombings down.  I feel like the knitters have improved the inn, created art, beautified the place... that's why I just about fell off my chair when yesterday Debbie, the wonderful new General Manager here, breezed by the table where Tina and I were having breakfast, and dropped a copy of an email the staff was discussing right in front of us.



In it, they talk about how fantastic the yarnbombings are. How they think they should leave them up for a month after we leave, every time... and how maybe there should be special events around ordinary people looking for and enjoying the art that the knitters create and leave behind - and that maybe they should think about it like geocaching

Unbelievable, and the best possible end to Camp. 


Posted by Stephanie at April 7, 2011 6:51 PM