Greetings, readers! Jasmin and Gigi here, ready to give you the scoop about what’s happening over at the Sock Summit. Okay, we know that it doesn’t start until Thursday, but in order to maximize our experience, and get prepared for the event, we flew in on Wednesday.  Our day started very early – at 4am, in order to be at the airport for our 6am flight out of San Jose up to Portland. It’s only an hour and a half flight up, but our flight had some serious star power. Steve Young, from the San Francisco 49ers was on our flight! (Sorry, no pictures with a sock. Even at 7:30 am, when we landed, I thought it was too early to ask for a sock picture.)

We dropped off our luggage at the hotel, and walked down for a leisurely breakfast at Mother’s Bistro. The food was great, the coffee French pressed, and the service, stellar. We had a charming waiter, Jason, who was obliging enough to take a picture with the sock I’m knitting for Andrew:

Mom liked their mugs SO much, that she picked one up. Can you blame her?

After that, we walked up to Powell’s, which is, in my opinion, the Bookstore to End All Bookstores. On our way there, we encountered a VW Bug that was FULL of water. I’m totally not kidding!

Complete with rubber ducks!

It was to promote some sort of extreme sports thing. The young man who provided the explanation (along with the occasional rock of the VW to attract attention to its full-of-water-ness) was charming and polite, and the first of quite a few helpful and friendly Portlanders we encountered on our adventure. After our trip to Powell’s, we recharged our batteries, and headed out for Sock Summit Central- the Oregon Convention Center.

As with any adventure, our band of merry knitters just might have taken the wrong MAX train – but, as I mentioned earlier, no fewer than three helpful Portlanders helped us get to where we were going. The signs all directed us where to go, which is where I wandered into the vendor hall to pick up some of the swag for our meetup on Saturday! I saw some gorgeous sock yarn (at Simply Socks Yarn Company), which I just MIGHT have stuck my face in. With these colors, wouldn’t you?

While I was out picking up swag, Mom was hanging out with the eager knitters who showed up a day early to register, hang out, and generally just soak up the sock mojo. While I was chatting with trtlgrl (and borrowed her charming baby), she introduced us to none other than Judy Becker!

Judy is SO nice, and a brilliant knitter, to boot! (Might I add that she had tassels on her Clapotis- a detail that really makes the piece!) Judy and crew recommended Burgerville, which another friendly knitter (and Portlander! I told you they were exceptionally helpful!) escorted us to. After a day of exploring, it really hit the spot.

We’re going to go put our feet up now – check back in tomorrow!