It was an awesome night. Just absolutely awesome. I had the best time hanging with my knitting peeps, hanging with other knitting peeps, and of course, meeting The Harlot.
Now I'll launch into what may quite possibly be the longest blog post I've ever made. LOL The adventure started with my pals Gillian, Meghan and Katrin meeting at my house. Once I changed out of my baby puke-stained shirt, logged out of work and decided on which WIP would be making the trip with me, we clambered into Katrin's car and we were off. We may have been high off yarn fumes or something, but it wasn't long before we decided we had to share our enthusiasm with the rest of the world -
Sadly, nobody honked. Haters!
I worked on my ribbed socks in the car -
(They're called birthday socks because the Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Brights yarn was a birthday gift from the lovely Miss Gillian.)
We arrived at the Borders around 3:00 pm, four and a half hours before The Harlot was due to speak. We figured if we had waited to go later we'd have rush-hour traffic to contend with. And besides, what's better than killing a few hours in a bookstore with your friends, knitting and drinking coffee?
Here's a non-reversed version of our "Bust" wordage -
I don't know if Stephanie saw our proclamation or not, but later we heard a few other knitters talking about it as they came in the store, heh heh.
To our suprise, we were not the first Harlot fans to arrive; there were two other ladies knitting in line. In line for what, you ask? We weren't sure but we weren't about to miss out on anything, so we plopped ourselves on the floor proceeded to wait.
See the space behind us? Pretty empty, eh? Not for long -
Ha ha, that store was quickly chock full 'o knitters. See the baby in the middle? He was with his mom in line for hours, and not a single peep of complaint bless his heart. Hands down the easiest-going baby alive. I know my kids would have been scaling the bookcase searching for an escape route.
I finished the birthday socks in line -
Meghan worked on her first sock -
Katrin finished her scarf -
Gillian started a new sock using the coolest little rosewood DPNs from Lantern Moon (I'm going to break down and buy a set this week, I just know it) and showed off her fabulous one-of-a-kind "Virginia Is For Knitters" dishcloth -
We finally figured out what we were in line for - everyone was assigned a number for getting their book signed after The Harlot was finished speaking. So we were numbers 3-6 for meeting her in person, woot! After getting our numbers, we grabbed dinner at La Madaleine's next door, grabbed seats and waited for Stephanie to arrive.
Blurry shot of the crowd before the talk -
The picture doesn't do the whole thing justice, but there were easily over a hundred knitters there. It was a sight to behold. It was a lot of fun gabbing with surrounding knitters, chatting about yarn and showing off our work. We had the pleasure of sitting next to
Jo, who was super nice to hang out with and hope to cross knitting paths with again. =)
Started new sock while we waited some more -
I may not finish them until 2009 at the rate I've been going lately, but henceforth these will forever be called my Harlot Socks. ;)
Finally, Stephanie was here! (My camera's flash was being a butthead, so I don't have a good shot of her standing at the podium but Gillian does, I think) She was awesome. (Have I used the word awesome enough?) She talks exactly the way she sounds in my head when I'm reading her blog (did that come out right?), and she's even more hysterically funny in person. She had lists, such as ways to respond if someone comments about your stash. She talked about the stereotypes knitters face from Muggles, about the cold & callous machinations of C.H.O.K.E. (Cultural Humiliation of Knitters Everywhere) and how often knitters are (foolishly) underestimated. Case in point: have you seen the total on
her blog sidebar lately? She talked about so much more and I know any way to describe it would be a poor imitation, so you'll just have to take my word for it that she was fantastic.
After the talk was over, it was book-signing time and we were some of the first in line! Katrin got the chance to meet her first, and Meghan showed off her first sock mojo -
Then it was my turn to meet Stephanie. She asked me what my middle name was, then told me my mother was smart for naming me Amanda Marie because she named her daughter Amanda Lynn which sounds like "a mandolin", LOL. I presented her with my Virginia dishcloth (she said it was the first VA dishcloth she'd gotten) and babbled about how Grace called it the Dead Chicken state. I think I even told her "Welcome to the Dead Chicken State". Bwahaha. I swear, I think I'm cracked in the head.
(PS - Stephanie? If by some miracle you're reading this, you may notice a tiny dab of lipstick on the edge of the dishcloth. This is from the lipstick we used to draw on the car window. Hopefully that knowledge will make the smudge a little less of a flaw and more of an interesting "enhancement".)
Then Gillian presented Stephanie with her Virginia Is For Knitters dishcloth (in case you're wondering, it's a play on our state's "Virginia is for Lovers" motto). Stephanie thought it was great! Then Gillian got to pose with The Harlot and even got to TOUCH the famous traveling sock.
Love this picture. Love it! How cool is that???
Seriously, I can't say it enough. We had the absolute best time in the world, and I really hope I'll have the chance to meet Stephanie again. =)
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