In Which Things End as Strangely as they Started

Here are some things that surprised me in the last few days of sock camp.

1. How very, very seriously knitters took making their little sock monkeys. By Friday, clothing and accessorizing the little gaffers had become an obsessive endeavour, and by the time we were all ready to play “show me your monkey” on Friday night, they were all nothing short of art.

Ballerinamonkey2004Bitermonkey2004Monkeyline2004Stashmonkey2004

Yogamonkey2004Bonenosemonkey2004Bongomonkey2004Brokebackmountain2004

Knitterstakingmonkey2004Shrinermonkey2004DownwardmonkeyAnythinghelps2004

There were homeless monkeys, monkeys doing yoga, shriner monkeys, brokeback mountain monkeys, monkeys with “hobbies”, monkeys with habits… monkeys, monkeys, monkeys. Be sure to click to embiggen these monkeys, they are totally worth it. We even buried Debbie, the pattern’s designer, in monkeys…an experience from which she is sure to never recover.

Debbieisburied2004

My monkey? Well. I got a little carried away. My monkey knit a little sock on dpns (toothpicks)

Mymonkeysknitting2004

Mymonkeyknits2004

and because he was busy I made him an argyle vest to wear.

Mymonkeyvest2004

We had a sock puppet show, which was funny from the front,

Sockmonkeyshow2004

but way funnier from the back.

Monkeyshowback2004

We had a talent show, with Yodelling knitters (you have no idea how rare yodelling knitters are) dancing knitters and a camp song (Addicted to yarn) sung to the Robert Palmer classic, complete with backup knitters. (I have no good pictures of this. Know that it was the brainchild of Stephen at Hizknits, and will likely show up on the Yknit podcast at some point.)

I think that it would not be a mistake to say that the bartenders for the whole final evening were so stunned that they could scarcely move.

Barkeeps2004

It was incredible to watch them. They couldn’t look away. They were glued. They were stunned and amazed and they had no idea what hit them. The two of them were exceedingly awesome, considering that they were entirely shellshocked by the number and nature of sock camp.

Then, just when I thought it couldn’t get any weirder…

Snowonorcas2004

It snowed.

(I’m starting to take the snow thing personally. I think winter is following me.)

There’s an altitude thing going on here that totally freaked me out.

Snowonmountainorcas2004

See that? Below a certain altitude it all melted off the trees, but for a good twelve hours there it snowed. Totally bizarre. More bizarre? I finished socks.

Fastsockshw12004

Blue Moon Socks that Rock Heavyweight… 3.25mm needles, colourway that is currently a rare gem but will be for sale as soon as Tina gets to it. (Grimm’s Garden, when it’s done.)

Hwsocksd2004

These worked up like lightning, but still fit in shoes and are brilliantly comfy. I’ll write up the pattern for you as soon as I make another pair to check my work. Darned nice. For now, I’m off to bed. Tomorrow is the event at Third Place Books in Seattle, then the Earth Day event in Portland the day after. I’ll be really sad to leave the island, but totally happy to get back to a place with regular internet and cell phone service.