~ Sock Dreams ~

with the celebration of winter solstice ahead we are preparing to stay warm (and dry) and enjoying the change of seasons with a new theme… our beloved Solstice theme, lovingly remodeled by hand by Yummy Wakame to take advantage of the many new features we’ve added this past year including last week’s addition of multi-image capability. Some products will still only have one image, especially items we’ve carried for awhile because it will take time to fill them all in.

Back in the old days, when this was a simple hand made site using a simple program I could use any image, any size or shape, I wanted. But when we converted to a dynamic design consistency was required and we set the image size at a puny 200 x 300 px images to keep it lean. Last year we started adding larger images with zoom function and now we can also add multiple images, per color/size, plus we can also play with formats so horizontals and squares will start appearing in addition to our traditional “portrait” orientation. I’m even going back to throwing in some more artistic shots here and there.

Not only are we adding more images to our products on the site these days, we have been showing off our images, and images we like, in places like Pinterest, Chictopia and now Instagram… which, at this time, is just my snaps though our social media Dreamers will all still be keeping an eye in there for new favorite shots and catching comments and tags that I might miss in the flurry of socks that fly by in the average day at SDHQ.

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“Fifteen men on the Dead Man’s Chest Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the wwwil had done for the rest Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

Avast, me hearties! Sock Dreams is about to set sail on a grand adventure with our good friends, the pirates of PDXYar—The Swashbucklers of Stumptown!  Portland’s Premiere Privateers!  The Corsairs of the I-5 Corridor!—for the 3rd annual Swashbuckler’s Ball. Our relationship with PDX Yar started back when we gave a donation to build their stage/ ship the El Tiburon and since then it’s been nothing but glory of a piratical nature… YAR!

Every year Swash Ball, as it is called for short, donates some of its proceeds to a local charitable business. This year, they will be donating to Dove Lewis Animal hospital a non-profit emergency 24 hour veterinary clinic that provides Portlanders with affordable vet care and pet education.

To promote this event, the video team asked the members of PDX Yar to participate in a promotional video which we are pretty darn proud of. Thanks to the crew of PDX Yar and Bushwhcker Cider House for graciously letting us film in their space.

If you want to join us at this event, tickets are still available on the Swashbuckler’s Ball web site. For GLORY!!!

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Here at Sock Dreams, our holiday season starts a little before Halloween and doesn’t end  until past the New Year. During this time it’s all hands on deck for all the customer service and the fastest shipping we can provide, so usually we don’t have time to go to holiday type events. This year, however, we are taking a little time out for a few events that we love, right here in Portland, OR.

The first holiday event will be the Siren Nation Craft Fair! This is an event that we have sponsored for many years, but this year we were asked to be there in person and we accepted graciously.

The craft fair is a portion of the weekends activities for Siren Nation which, “is a unique arts organization that showcases and creates performance and exhibition opportunities for women throughout the year. We are the only women’s collective that produces an annual festival showcasing the original work of women working in music, film, performance and visual art.”

There will be an entire weekend of visual art, music, film, and crafting workshops through out the next week and a half.

We will be bringing tons of discounted Dream Stockings, along with some fun stuff for stocking stuffers. The event will take place Sunday November 11th at McMenamins Kennedy School from 11am to 5pm and has some really great vendors.

Come down, join us and kick off your holiday shopping right!

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Greetings Sock Dreams fans! We’re about to head up to Seattle for our last big event presence of 2012 and it’s going to be a doozy! November 2nd, 3rd and 4th we will be vending our fabulous wares at the Pacific North West’s own educational Burlesque convention, BurlyCon.

What makes BurlyCon different from other Burlesque festivals and conventions? The BurlyCon web site describes the event:

Burlycon is a community-oriented professional growth and educational convention for Burlesque performers, fans, and aficionados. BurlyCon will offer classes, workshops, panels, a vendor fair, and social events.  BurlyCon is committed to providing an affordable opportunity for performers of all levels to learn, grow, and wwwelop their skills. BurlyCon is focused entirely on community building, educational and social events. There are NO Burlesque shows or performances!  There is no contest, and no performance showcase.

With classes ranging from basic bump and grind to fan dancing to managing a burlesque company, there is no doubt this will be a wonderfully educational weekend for all involved!

Sock Dreams is not only vending at the event, but we are one of the sponsors and as such we were able to provide an advertisement for the event.

We were lucky enough to get the help of local Burlesque performer (and one of my favorites) the lovely Infamous Nina Nightshade. Nina works with several Burlesque groups in the Portland area, one of them being Critical Hit Burlesque another partner member of the Portland Geek Council, and she was very excited to help us out.

In Burlesque, the performers use the word peel to describe the action of slowly removing items; we will be bringing all the items that are ripe to peel. Along with our dreamiest Dream Stockings, lovely lacy items, sock garters and belts, as well as tights and other fun accoutrements.

If you are interested in attending this event, registration is still available on their web site. Come shake a tail feather with us!

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We’re thrilled to be hosting a Halloween costume contest on Tumblr this year! Show us your spookiest, kookiest costumes using Sock Dreams socks, and if we love your picture the best, you’ll win one of three gift cards.

You don’t even need to have a Tumblr account to submit your photos, so this contest is open to every single sockster. If you have any questions, please email us, and we’ll be happy to help. We’ll be accepting submissions until 11:59 PM on November 3rd. Please be sure to click through to see the details and guidelines for submitting content, and have fun! ♥

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