For Ian

I have left Victoria (pictures for the knitters later, it was very grand) and have made my way to Alaska. Now, Ian…because you are such a very accomplished traveller, such a wonderful traveller that I could never compare, no matter how many places this knitting thing takes me, I have to tell you that it gives me a certain incredible joy to show you something today, your birthday, that you have never seen. I flew over snowy mountains, glaciers, icebergs and all manner of incredible things to get here, and these sorts of things you may have seen.

Alaskamountains1006

This, though, this is what I have to show you for your day, and I know you’re going to love it.

The sock…basking in the midnight sun.

Sockatmidnight1106

Picture taken in natural light, at exactly midnight, in Anchorage, Alaska as it became your birthday. (At least as it became your birthday here…I suppose because of the time change, technically it had been your birthday for four hours in Toronto.) You would love it here dude, and I have to admit that even though it’s your birthday, I love being somewhere you haven’t. (That almost never happens.)

It’s 12:26am right now, and the sun has technically set, but has done such a poor job of it that you could read a book (or photograph all your knitwear) outside. There are a few clouds in the blue sky, and a perpetual pink and yellow sunset hangs over (what I think) is Cooks Inlet. Soon the sunset will become a sunrise, without ever having dipped all the way into night.

Skyforianbday1106

Happy Birthday little brother. I love you.

(PS. I would be a terrible mother if I lived in Alaska. I would have no idea when to bring the kids in from outside.)

Knitters do it in airports

Today, unless you hadn’t heard, is a High Holy Day in the land of knitting. Yes Poppets, unbeknownst to the rest of the world, today is International World Wide Knit In Public Day, and no…I didn’t make it up. (Some non-knitters read this blog, and I didn’t want them thinking that I just nominated a day myself.) Get out there and do your part. I am making a good show of it, and have already knit in two cabs, three airports, two airplanes and two countries. (A great big Hi! to the knitter I saw making something blue and in the round on dpns (maybe a big hat?) in the Portland Airport and another big Hi to the knitter making a fluffy yellow something (maybe a blanket?) in the Seattle airport. I was too shy to speak to you, but I saw you, and sent warm vibes your way. Covering the airports is difficult work, but it’s good to know I am not alone in my mission this day.)

Last night I did my thing in Portland, (whatever my thing is…) and after they had a difficult time integrating knitters last year, Powells got a way better grip on their knitterly reality last night. I do admit (a little bit) that the knitterness can be a little odd to the uninitiated.

For example, here’s Auntiemichal with an Oregon Washcloth for my collection.

Auntimichael0706

Comment from a bystander – “What’s up with the State Cloths? Is it like spoons?” (Like spoons? Sometimes I don’t know what non-knitters are thinking.)

This is Peggy and Nikolai.

Peggynicolai0806

Nicolai brought his book for me to sign. I advised him that typically, I do only sign books that I write…but “The Magic School Bus” series is darned good, and the young gentleman was adamant…..

This here is Jodi…

Jodisbday0806

It’s her birthday!

I met Fyberduck (my pictures of her are unflattering and do not do her justice. I shall not post them. You can visit her blog, she has a nicer one) who seemed stunned that I “knew” her. (Remember people, you read blogs, I read blogs. Two way street. Nothing stunning about it.) Next up was Kathy…

This is Kathy. Kathy makes the best samosas in the world.

Kathyshere0806

Now, I know this because she brings them to me when I am in her part of the world. (I am a very, very lucky knitter.) Last night when I saw her, I felt a rush of excitement, but Kathy (who I like very much, even were she to bring me nothing but her smile) did not even Smell Like Samosas. Turns out that she brought me a new treat. Scones made with special Oregon cherries. Very, very yummy. I ate them last night, this morning and on the plane. Totally as good as samosas. (Almost as good as her smile.)

Rodger, Abundant Yarns blogger and the host of their Mens Knitting Night.

Rodgersweater0806

Representing for the less-often knitting gender, who brought along a (slightly reluctant but charming) model wearing a sweater he made using screen shots from the movie Tristan and Isolde. (I love knitters who don’t let something as trivial as a lack of a pattern stop them.)

Now this…This here is Christy.

Christysone0806

She is part of the single sock liberation movement, bravely struggling on in the face of the two sock hegemony. (Socks that come only in pairs are LIMITED THINKING.)

Meet Sarah and her first sock…

Sarah1St0806

Chris….

Chrisisenthrus0806

Chris is high enthusiasm. I assure you.

Shaina took my picture with a Polaroid camera,

Shainacamer0806

and something about that dissolved me into a fit of giggles that took moments to recover from. (It was the noise. It was some strange flashback.)

Chrissy (who gave me a great breastfeeding slogan tee shirt the last time I saw her, has only upped her cool by becoming Gardiner Yarnworks.

Chrissydesigner0806

It warmed my heart to see her friends were encouraging her in her business. Stick together ladies, it’s a big world out there.

This is a rare photo of Monica pdx in the wild.

Monicapdx0806

(I can’t believe that I just got the pdx thing.)

Meet Jane, who came to the signing to remind me what to aspire to.

Janeandhershawl0806

Jane is holding the lace shawl that she is knitting,

Janesshawl0806

out of her own handspun laceweight. There is nothing wrong with Jane’s skills, let me tell you. I am just grateful that Jane is not 22 years old, because I like to believe it takes some time to be that good, and if she had just taken up knitting and spinning mere months ago I would have had to mar our lovely meeting by smacking her. (Jane…if you just took up knitting and spinning? Don’t tell me.)

This the charming lady Tammy….

Tammyhatlady0806

was Portlands hat lady. (In a very charming note of symmetry, Tammy collects…you guessed it. Spoons.) She is a delight and a wonder, as is all of Portland. I love it there.

Finally for today, since I keep forgetting to get one of these nice knitters to take a photo of my finished sweater, I did it myself this morning in ….well. The place I was in when I saw a full length mirror.

Dicinseattlebath

The ladies washroom at the Seattle Airport. Sigh. I do what I can.

This is a bit of a mess

I’ve started this about 20 times, trying to launch into a fantastic accounting of a wonderful evening, but the truth is that I might be too tired and delirious to pull it together in a way that tells accurately about how wonderful it was. Since I’ve already shown you the palm trees, let’s just let’er rip.

Petaluma is an hour from San Francisco…two and a half hours in traffic (which it was ) across the bridge (which it was.) Big thanks to the Tiny Tyrant (seen here looking totally smug about getting me there on time) who told me to get a move on if I wanted to get across the bridge with time to spare.

Tinytyrant0607-1

I arrived with about 45 minutes to spare. (Good call on the leaving early.) I went and sat in the basement where I pre-signed books, had a lovely cup of tea and enjoyed the fine company of the ladies from Knitterly, who made me feel very welcome indeed. They admired my reward sweater, which is indeed (as Margaret guessed Ruth’s Kauni Cardigan. (There’s a brilliant one happening here at Purlwise) Margaret gets no points for guessing though, since it was spotting her sweater in progress when I was in NYC a while ago that got me sending emails to fetch the yarn from Denmark in the first place. She’s an enabler of the highest order.)

More on the sweater later, since I actually knit 10 cm of the body before noticing I had made an enormous error (I blame lack of sleep, rather than my stupidity) and ripping the beast back.

Waitingsomemore0607

Sweater seen here in a coffeeshop a few centimetres before its entirely appropriate demise.

Updates on that one as I rebuild. Where was I? Right.

Petaluma.

C2Petaluma0607

Cpetaluma0607

I think a lovely time was had by all, certainly by me. It could be the sunshine, it could be the lack of real cold, perhaps it is the wine or the ocean…but the Petaluma knitters were a darned good bunch. Generous, funny….They were great. My good time looked like this.

Babies (this guy is Nolan. See how he’s reaching for the sock? The force is in him.)

Babynolan00706

Baby Hannah.

Babyhannah

(Homebirthed babies always have a nice look about them)

There were lots of first socks….

Elizabeth

Elizabethstsock0706



Baraka

Baraka1Stsocks0706-1

Mindy (Actually a crocheter…but we take all kinds.)

Mindyistsock0706-2

And Makaela….

Makaela0706-1

Who I have got to tell you, restored my faith in real first sock knitting. None of these beautiful, no issue first socks for Makeala, NO SIR. Those two socks she’s holding? Those two Very Different socks?

They are her first PAIR. (Atta girl. Three cheers for first socks that suck. You’re my sort of knitter darlin’, my sort entirely. )

There were birthday knitters…

Amy

Amybday0706-1

Julie (from Atlanta) and Katie (from Philly) are here for Julie’s birthday

Julieandkatie0706-1

Katherine

Katherine0607-1

There were knitters with special talents….

Alison Hyde (holding her author copy of her brand, spanking new, soon to be out book. I tried to steal it sort of accidentally.)

Alisonhyde0706

Phil and Kristine.

Philandkristine

Curators of Curious Creek Fibres. (Beautiful stuff.) Phil won some sock yarn from me a while back (he came up with the best scrabble word) and he now has a stash of 1 (one) skein, but Kristine is helping him out. He’s clutching his practice piece there…and swears he’s going to knit socks.

There was Romi

Romishere0607-1

From Designs by Romi.

Laura made a California washcloth

Laurawash0706

Kelly made a California washcloth too (with the bay knit in.)

Kellybad0607

Christine, Traci and Pat drove from Half Moon Bay (I don’t know where that is, but it sounds beautiful)

Halfbay0607

Jane fulfilled a brilliant function…

Janescissors0607

Lending me a pair of scissors to trim the ends off my new sweater, which is smashing, and does fit, and was totally forgotten in the rush. I’ll try to remember pictures tomorrow.

Laura was our Petaluma hat lady…

Laurahatlaura

and she collected a great many beautiful hats.

Now, if you’ll forgive me the lack of poetry, wit and finesse…I’m off to bed. I’m in a bit of a time warp, writing about Petaluma when I’ve just had a good time in Portland as I pack for Victoria…

and if I don’t lie down I’ll fall down. More tomorrow.

PS. A deep and personal thank you to Sylvia and Silvia….Who’s chocolate covered coffee beans are the only reason I made the 4:30 airport call the next morning. You are blessed women.

Home of the fancy trees

That trip, my friends, was a bit much.

To keep from having to do the brutal flight today, then do the signing tonight all wiped out, Jayme-the-wonder-publicist and I agreed that she would book a flight out of Toronto at 9pm, I would change in Las Vegas at midnight and then fly into Oakland on a flight that got here at 1:30am. Then I just had to find my luggage, grab a cab to San Francisco (since that’s where I’m flying out of tomorrow morning, and I would rather have things easy early mornings than late at night…I’m much more of a night person.) I’d arrive in the hotel at 2:30 or so, which really didn’t seem so bad. Sure…it’s late…but I really am a night person, and I could sleep in in the morning and on the flights and it would be no biggie.

Enter the part where I am an idiot. (There seem to be a lot of stories in which that problem features largely, doesn’t there?) I left Toronto at 9, stuck my yarn and my water in the back of my seat pocket and knit my way to Las Vegas to change planes while trying to figure out why I was so tired if it was only midnight.

Slotsinvegasam0606

That’s slot machines in the airport waiting area. There are women in get-ups walking around letting you know that you can have credit for your plane ticket and start playing NOW. I don’t know what about this struck me as so appalling, but it really did. I have some objections to casinos in general, but you can choose whether or not to go into them and I respect peoples individual choice to gamble or not (although I have noticed that it is so often people who can not afford to lose a dime sitting there ) but who am I to make other peoples rules. That said, I found it sort of galling somehow to have the machines right there, in a common area that you can’t avoid. The chairs and gates are all arranged in a circle around this centrepiece of slot machines and I …well. I bought two big cookies in rapid succession, averted my eyes and knit madly on my sweater.

By the end of the wait in Vegas I was delirious. I thought maybe it was the flight or the cookies or the slots or the sweater…I couldn’t believe that I was a staggering disaster at only 12am. I somehow got myself onto the plane, slept the rest of the way to Oakland (something I never do, as I believe on some level that it is my constant vigilance that keeps planes in the air.) and staggered off the plane and into a cab for San Francisco exhausted and scarcely held together. It wasn’t until the very nice cab driver pointed out that though it was very reasonable to be tired at 2:30am, that I must be especially tired because of the time change from Toronto that I got it. It wasn’t 2:30 am….it was 5:30 am! I’d been up all night, changing planes and holding planes up in the air with the force of my will. No wonder I was tired. No wonder the sweater was almost done too.

Firsticord0706

I left my house at 7pm and arrived at the hotel at 5:30 am…my time. That’s a lot of knitting time. The sleeve is done, the neckband is done and the first 50 cm (19″) of I-cord is done. That means all that’s left is to knit another metre of the stuff (40″), try to block it with the hotel steam iron, and I’m done. It looks good, if I finish it before I go to the bookstore I’ll try and get one of the knitters there to take a finished object picture for you. (Assuming it fits. There’s always that.)

When I got to the hotel room I fell down on the bed in my clothes and got up seven hours later and feel much better. I opened the curtains and got the surprise of my life….I’m at the ocean! (That’s the thing about arriving places at night. It isn’t until the burning bright day-star comes up that you have any idea where you are.)

The sock and I went to see it….

Theoceanisout0706

But it was out when we called.

I hear it will be back later, so I’ll keep an eye out for that.

I had a lovely walk, looking for the ocean, and found a bird I think was a heron of sorts…..

Heronmaybe0607

and I saw what was probably a hummingbird (that or there are some alarmingly large bees here that we should worry about) and these are palm trees…

Palmssock0607

Which I always find exotic and impressive. I remember the first time I saw one, I looked up and thought “Wow, Movie trees!” They’ve never stopped being just so fancy and extravagant to me.

I’ve got a few hours before I head to the bookstore, (how much traffic will there be on the Golden Gate bridge at 5pm?) and I know I can finish the I-cord in that time. That means I can start my reward sweater.

Rainbowyarnsa0607

This is the yarn. I’ve got two.

Raibowyarn0607

Any guesses?

A journey of a thousand miles begins…

Not with a single step, as Lao Tzu said…but with me taking clothes out of my suitcase, washing them, and putting them right back in again, which is what I’m doing today. I feel like I’ve just been home for mere days (which is because I have) and my flight to California is late tonight. Tomorrow I’m at Copperfield’s Books in Petaluma, Friday is Powells (the main one) in Portland, Saturday, The James Bay Community Centre in Victoria BC, then a wee jaunt to Tidal Wave Books in Anchorage on Monday. (Details, as always are on the tour page where I keep all this stuff. Scroll down.) After this there is time off until the first week of August when I go to…..

I don’t know where I go, and frankly, I can tell I’m ready for a bit of a rest because I’m not at all curious.

I’m excited to see the knitters, thrilled about the Knit-Out in Victoria, deadly uncool with glee about seeing new places, but I can’t help but wish that someone had spent more time on that teleportation invention so that I could do all of this without airports, airplanes, busses, taxi’s, hotels, room service and hauling a suitcase. I get cramps thinking about the airports. I hate airports.

I have one good strategy though, I am planning some very exciting knitting, something that arrived in the mail a little while ago that I have stashed just as a reward for this sort of thing. It’s so good that it almost makes the prospect of hours and hours (and hours) of waiting around sitting in bad chairs with bad coffee seem like it might be fun. In a cruel move, I have decided to show it to you tomorrow, since today I am a paragon of virtue, and am finishing the Dream in Color cardigan I started a while ago. The one I intended to wear on just this trip.

Milliesnewsweater0606

I pried it out from under the cat, and I’ve got just 1/3 of a sleeve to go, plus some edging and sixteen metres (not really, but it’s a lot) of I-cord for the tie to go. (It’s this pattern.) I wondered what I could do to motivate myself to finish it today and tonight on the flight, instead of starting the new and very exciting knitting, and it took a little thought, but I think I’ve got it.

Greensweateralmost0606

I’m not packing another sweater, or a jacket. If I don’t finish this, I will be missing an essential portion of my wardrobe for this trip. Since I loathe being cold, I think this shall be sufficient motivation. (Just to be sure, I think I will put all other knitting in my checked bag. Maybe.)

Sleevesgreens0606

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to round up enough clean underwear to put this show on the road.

(PS. Does anyone remember who the hat collector for Petaluma California is? I seem to have lost track of that little detail. My sincerest apologies. Please stand up and shout if it’s you. If it counts for anything, I have also lost track of my brand new sandals, which I adore.)

Didtoospin0606



(PSS. I totally did spin yesterday. Don’t start.)

I can stop anytime I want

I have a little secret.

It all started with Rachel H. benignly pointing out the Dream in Color baby sweater kits at Lettuce Knit. I saw them, and something happened. Something snapped. I suddenly felt like there was no way that I could live without one of those kits. They were so….

Diccoloursall2405-2

Charming. The colours, the tiny sleeves, the way Megan had them all kitted up with tiny little balls of delicious little colours. I stood over the kits, helpless in the face of them, and I bent over to pick one kit up…and something happened. I’m not even sure what it was, but something just felt so right, and 5 minutes later I owned three kits and a vaguely dirty feeling. I started knitting.

I justified the three kit thing by remembering that there are three babies headed into my world soon, and besides that, even if that weren’t enough justification, there are always babies coming. Baby stuff is always worth buying. Yeah. I would knit one of the kits and I would feel better.

Tulipsweater1Stdone

Done. About this time, this time when I was thinking about letting go of the baby sweaters a little bit and maybe going back to the cardigan that only needs a sleeve to be done, Ken and I went back to Lettuce Knit where Megan had kitted up a version with more boyish colours, and out of nowhere, as he walked up to those little bags filled with wee sweater glee…. I heard myself say “Buy Two.”

“Two?”

“One for me, one for you.”

Ken gave me a look. A look that said something along the lines of “Holy crap Steph, you bought three and now you want another one and that’s four and maybe you don’t need another one?”

I stared him down, and as he got two, he gently suggested (I had that look about me) that I might be approaching that crazy line again, and why didn’t he trade me one of the girly ones for one of the boyish ones, just so I wasn’t totally whacked on this little sweater thing and perhaps agreed.

Quietly though, even though I had agreed and even nodded gravely in assent when he was talking about the line and my proximity to it, while he was paying Megan for the kits I sort of told her that meant I would be needing another girly kit so I didn’t go down a kit when I traded with Ken.

Megan asked me what I needed four kits for, and I was helpless to explain. I didn’t tell her that really I wanted to buy every kit out from under her, that four was maybe the tip of the freakin’ iceberg for this thing, that I was willing to wrestle other knitters for them, that I pinned for them and thought about them…I simply told her I just….need them.

I went home and I tried to get over it.

Dicbabyswates2Done0506

I failed. This time though, now that I had knit two baby sweaters back to back, and now that I had knit both versions, I started to feel a little better. I started to thing I was moving on. I even looked at some other knitting, and then I blocked the boyish sweater and had a contact high or something. Right out of the blue, as I was feeling totally like I might be coping well with the lure of the attached i-cord and the seed stitch borders…right when I thought I had moved past the little ties and those Lilliputian sleeves….

Threedicsweaters0506

Mercy. That last one happened so fast that I didn’t see it coming.

Now, there’s one kit left in my house, and technically….

I am to give it to Ken. I’ve already agreed to give it to Ken, and there are witnesses and I’m probably even going to manage to hand it over. (Not really. In a moment of brilliance that acknowledges my weakness I have told him to come and take it from my home while I am away on tour this week. All I have to do now is resist the urge to stuff it in my suitcase and it will be done.) I can’t tell you how badly I feel the pangs of longing for this thing. I don’t want to give it away, because…well. Then I will not have one.

Babysweatcnletgo0506

Now, I’m usually pretty good about letting go, so good in fact that I have some, several, a lot of things that I just gave up and wandered away from, completely mid knit. There’s something about these though, something that makes me want to buy a couple of the kits and put them in the stash so that even if the yarn is discontinued or the pattern goes away or ….I don’t know what, then I will still be able to knit this again any time that I want to. (As often as that turns out to be.)

Has there ever been a pattern or yarn like this for you? One you stashed and hoarded like there was no hope for tomorrow? One that so fully met your knitting needs that you couldn’t imagine a time when you wouldn’t enjoy knitting it? I am torn between a tear to the shop to get more (before anyone else does) and pulling myself out of this rut before I am buried in wee sweaters, i-cord and scraps of rainbows while I clutch and mutter “we loves it, we knits it, we keeps it all!”

Sweatersleevesdic0506-1

I hope it counts for something on the karmic scale if I give the sweaters away to some babies. In the meantime, if you see me at Lettuce Knit and try to get between me and those kits? Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Mission Impossible

Clearly, in the last several days, I haven’t been myself, as witnessed by the lack of blogging. It’s been a lot like Mission Impossible to move at this pace over the last few days, and I suppose it was inevitable that with this much going on, something bad would have to happen.

1. After leaving at the fantastical hour of O-dark hundred hours on Wednesday, I suffered a tremendous shock in a Northampton pub when I finally succeeded in getting Jayme-the-wonder-publicist to knit a sock.

Jaymeknitsasock3005

She’s doing fine (in no small part due to the fantastic Mind’s Eye sock yarn she’s enchanted with) but it really knocked me for a loop to see her sitting there, just knitting away. I never expected it to take mere months to bend her to my will. Now that I have her held tightly in my thrall – there are other things I will be sorting out. Like the flight at 0-dark hundred hours. (For any Storey Publishing people reading this blog, that’s definitely not Jayme’s beer. Definitely. That’s my beer. For sure. I just like, put it by her.)

2. There were this many of us at Webs.

Calvin13005

Calvin23005

That is not a normal view my friends, not any way you slice it. No way. Even I was flipped out, and I’ve got the strangest possible life and some experience with whacks of knitters in one spot. Dudes, it was a LOT of knitters, and the Webs people were dynamite. Absolutely incredible. They were on fire with the organization and the chairs and the everything, even bringing water to knitters on trays in the back warehouse while they waited and/or shopped. Kathy and Steve really demonstrated that they know how to treat an economic force for good.

I managed, in the whirl of knitters and yarn to pin down a couple of examples of the sort of people I’m meeting out there.

Here’s Kait. Kait knit a washcloth for me that takes care of two states with one skein. This way is Vermont…

Kaitver3005

and this way is New Hampshire…

Kaitnh3005

and she selected the colors green and white because “Vermont is green in summer and white in winter (generally) and Vermont is the Green Mountain State and New Hampshire is home to the White Mountains.” See that? A washcloth with that much thought in it? Not a normal day at all. Not normal, and exactly freakin’ cool. (Also not normal? A bunch of people let Kait and her mum move up the line because they were having car trouble and didn’t want to drive in the dark. Very nice.)

Remember when I linked to the big knit glove?

Amybigchairliver3005

Amy borrowed a pick-up (since the thing won’t fit in her little civic, and hauled the thing to Webs. I laughed and laughed and laughed.

(I admit, up until she popped out of nowhere with the thing a little piece of me thought it might be photoshopped.) Amy? Wonderfully weird.

Monica1Stsock3005

Monica brought her 1st sock.

Seanhockeybib3005

Robyn brought me baby Sean, all the way from Montreal. (He’s so cute it gives you a little cramp.) Yes, he has a hockey bib on. That was one of the few normal things.

Charltonsocks3005

Charlton was knitting some pretty big kilt hose of his own devising.

Yarnlovemorganalex3005

Morgan and Alexandra are just as cute as little ladybugs.

Karinsigns3005

Karin signs her pattern (the Berthe Collar) in No Sheep for You, while I sign a book for her.

This?

Skipit3005

Perhaps we don’t explain this. Some things just….are.

Stateofmass3005

Aimie proves that it isn’t (as some had implied) too hard to knit MA into a washcloth.

Jessicaravelry

Jessica, the woman behind the buzz that is Ravelry.

Caroline1Stsocks3005

Jennifferistsock3005-1

Caroline and Jennifer show off 1st sock mojo.

And Matti….

Mattimakesyarn3005

Matti learned to spin that night, and this is her very first yarn.

Finally, my beloved Marcy,

Marcyshere3005

hostess with the mostess of one of the most interesting blogs out there. (If you don’t read it, you’re missing out. Marcy has a huge collection of knitting, spinning and fibre postcards and images, and she writes about them.)

Here is how many squares Webs collected,

Thesquareswebs3005

here is how many hats Webs collected,

Webshats3005

and here is SOME of the food that knitters donated.

Websfoodstuff3005

While I have come to expect the generosity of knitters, I do not think it’s normal. At all. A whole lot of people are going to have a life a tiny bit easier because of knitters. May a thousand stars shine upon the lot of you.

3. This hotel drove me insane and frayed my last nerve.

Hallwaytonowhere3105

I swear that every single hallway looked exactly like this, and the place was a maze. I was 10 minutes late meeting someone in the lobby because I was wandering hopelessly around the place. These are hallways to nowhere.

4. From Webs I went to The Flying Fingers yarn shop in Tarrytown NY. (HA! You didn’t know, did you! )

Flyingfingers1S3105

Here’s Denise and Elise in this totally charming shop (Home of the famous Yarn Bus) where the yarn is almost stacked to the ceiling all the way around. I had a lovely evening (and got some lovely yarn. I’ll show you later.)

Thesockishifhff3105

It was really a fantastic evening, (not just because of the beer [which was excellent] or the yarn [ which was just excellent too]) but because it’s been forever since I hung out with a small gathering of knitters and just talked and hung out. While I was talking, I happened to mention the Principles of Knitting, and how this book has become almost an urban legend. Tales are told of knitters who just come across one at a garage sale being flogged by someone who has no idea of it’s value, or a knitter who owns one and is unaware that having it on a shelf is like having hundreds of dollars of yarn money in the bank. Meet Olive.

Oliveownsapok3105

While I was talking about that she got this crazy look on her face.

Yup. She’s got one in her attic, and she had NO IDEA what it was worth. This event at Flying Fingers was small by design, and I want to thank Elise for being willing to do a little one that suited me just fine. It was weird to be normal, which probably means I should do it more often.

5. I went to BEA. BEA is pretty darned weird all by itself, and if you aren’t freaked out when you get there, you are going to be seriously flipped when you leave. Lucky for me, I had been pretty shaken before I got there, so I just rolled with the weird. BEA is an industry tradeshow for publishing, and you can’t go unless you are involved with it somehow. Authors, publishers, booksellers, librarians…you get it. You can’t just walk in off the street. This makes it very difficult for your average Yarn Harlot to stack the place with knitters…but I managed. Here, in quick order and click ’em if you want em big, are the random knitters I found at BEA.

Knitter11Bea026Knitter10Bea0206Knitter9Bea0206

Knitter7Bea0206Knitter6Bea0206Knitter5Bea0206

Zabetknitsbea02056Knitter4Bea0206

Knitter3Bea0206Knitter2Be0205Knitter1Bea0206

We are everywhere.

6. The sock now has ONE DEGREE of separation from Stephen King, since that hand that is holding it shook the hand of the man himself at the Rock Bottom Remainders Concert. (Please know, with some sadness, that it is not me that is holding it, but a knitter who works for Storey Publishing. I feel better about this knowing that all she could manage to get out while she met the man was “I love you”.)

Stephenkingdegree0206

While I have never been the same since The Shining, I will tell you that his last two books, Lisey’s Story, and especiallly On Writing. have turned me into a serious, serious fan. One Degree. Sigh.

7. Dudes! It’s Crazy Aunt Purl!

Beacrazyaunt0206

She’s there pimping her new book, and I have procured two copies of the advance reading copies. One for myself, and one for a lucky knitter who wins it in Claudia’s MS ride give-away. Visit Claudia to make a donation and to get a chance to win some of the very good things.

8. I saw the Empire State Building with all these smiling faces of New York projected on it.

Empirestatesml0206

It is so beautiful and weird that I can hardly tell you.

9. Debbie Macomber held my sock.

Debmacomberbea0206

10. Finally, I got to see something really weird. Really weird indeed.

Masondixon0206

Ann and Kay in one place at the same time. Totally trippy. This last bit of weirdness (and the knowledge that I had to run really fast to catch a plane) was probably what put me over the edge. The knitters, the hallways, the yarn, the books, the signing, the other authors…..it was all too much and I finally lost whatever thread was holding my careful mission impossible together...and there has been a casualty.

Ann and Kay have provided me with a proof of life photo that demonstrates without a shadow of a doubt that my sock was alive and unmitered on Saturday after I lost it at BEA, but there is little that I can do.

Harlotsocknytjune3

Though that lovely sock was a valuable member of my operation, it knew when it joined my crack team of travelling knitwear that if any member of my team was ever caught or killed, I would have to disavow all knowledge of it.

Godspeed and good luck little sock.