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22 November 2022

The event I went to is called a crank-in. This one was called “Show Me” Your Socks. Here is their logo. It was previously held in the “Show Me” state of Missouri. I think that’s where the name came from :-)

Here’s the event banner up on the second floor landing in the lobby of the hotel. This particular hotel hosts another crank-in in July every year, so they are used to all of us cranking away at pretty much all hours of the day and night :-D

So – what is it, exactly? It’s a bunch of folks who pack up their machines and tables and set up in a hotel ballroom or other location for a few days to crank socks and other stuff, too. For some crank-ins there are specific classes that people can pay to attend. This crank-in was more just a gathering of folks cranking and helping each other and chatting and just generally having a good time. Here is what a crank-in looks like! One of the organizers of this event has bee hives and a honey business :-) There isn’t always a table of honey at every crank-in :-D

Here’s the view from where I was sitting, which was over to the right. That purple machine is a 3D printed sock machine from a company called Dean & Bean. It was funny – the woman to my left also had a Dean & Bean! Hers was green. Her table looked like St. Patrick’s Day :-D These are a relatively new thing and a lower cost option than a metal machine.

And here is my little pigpen space. I angle my table because I prefer to crank facing the machine so that the crank is fully over to the right. That orientation suits my body mechanics much better than facing the table straight on and having the crank at an awkward angle. I think there has to be a better way to transport everything because I kept losing stuff in those black totes. :-D Oh – and the stuff to the left of my black totes is not mine, but all the rest of that mess is.

As I believe I have mentioned before, my entire focus for the event was on getting my ribber to work. For the first couple of days I thought I would not be successful. These machines have a very steep learning curve, and some people never learn to use their ribber dials. On top of the orange tote, you see a silver circle with an arm sticking up to the left. That’s a ribber. It sits on top of the machine cylinder as you saw in yesterday’s post, and there are a LOT of moving parts (pardon the pun) that all have to be aligned and adjusted and working together in just the right way for things to work well. It kinda reminds me of my bagpipes – you have a bag that you have to keep inflated and keep pressure on, and you have three drone reeds to keep in tune plus a chanter reed to also keep in tune, AND you have to make recognizable music. And sometimes, you also have to fricking march while you’re doing all that! :-D

We sat on hotel chairs that were supremely uncomfortable. I mean seriously – for as much extra padding as I have all over my body – my sitz bones apparently have NONE . . . :-S

Here is a sampling of some of my many tries with the ribber on my machine. I probably should have flipped some of them over so you could see the huge number of dropped stitches and issues. The pink yarn is what is called waste yarn. The multi-color yarn is project yarn. You can see it was a rough couple of days. I was, eventually, successful, but what a road.

On Friday, I decided to take a break and work with a different yarn and a different size cylinder. I’ll share more about that tomorrow :-)

Seriously, I’m still decompressing. Yesterday morning I sat down to TCB (take care of business), one task of which was to renew my car plate sticker. This required a credit card, so I grabbed my little card wallet out of my bag and got my sticker ordered. Imagine my horror about three hours later, at the checkout at the grocery store, when I realized that I had NOT put my little card wallet back in my purse. I had $120 bucks worth of groceries and only about $70 bucks in cash. AND I was out without my driver’s license! They actually held my groceries and kept them cold while I went home, grabbed my wallet (on my desk where I left it -somehow a piece of paper was on top of it . . . ahem . . . ) and zip back to the store to pay for and retrieve my groceries. I go to the same checker/bagger team every time I shop because they are so nice to me. They recognize me now! And the checker certainly did not have to do what she did, which was run to customer service to see what they could do when I realized I was out without my card. I made sure that the customer service manager knew what a great team they are and how kind to me they always are.

Anyone else feeling the dryness of winter already?? My hands. My cuticles. My feet. My skin pretty much everywhere. Ugh. Time to get my winter lotion/moisture routine going again.

This song has been in my head lately. It was made famous by a US pop group called The Walker Brothers back in the mid-1960s. Interestingly, they were actually more famous in the UK. It was actually written for Frankie Valli by Bob Gaudio (one of the original Four Seasons), but it didn’t hit big until The Walker Brothers released it. It’s been covered by plenty of people, include Bruce Springsteen on his latest album of R&B covers. But his friend and former band member, sax player Clarence Clemons, covered it back in the 1980s. I prefer his version to Bruce’s. The woman singing with The Big Man is none other than the legendary Darlene Love, and if you’ve never seen the documentary, 20 Feet from Stardom, find it and watch it.

This is Clarence Clemons – The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore