Rather good

I have to tell you, I’ve only been 40 years old for a few hours and it’s very good. The last day of 39 was pretty wicked as well. I spent it puttering around the house with Juno and Joe, and then Rachel H came about lunchtime and we went to the airport to collect up Franklin. His flight was delayed (he was flying from O’Hare, my personal O’Hell, so my expectations were low) but me and Juno and Rach had mad waiting skillz.

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See? No troubles. We collected the gentleman in all due time. (Thank goodness. Rachel and I were playing it cool, but dudes, we were sweaty. No Franklin is totally the only thing we can’t recover from. We have spreadsheets with names and I bought bottled water and we are trying to control the weather with our minds, but if Franklin didn’t get off that plane there would be nothing we could do. It created nausea to even dwell in that special land of disappointment.)

We finally collected him (he cleared customs as well as any man with that much wool can) and we took him down to Lettuce Knit, showed him the lay of the land and he fancied the local welcome…

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Then trouped him back to my house for a lovely supper in the garden, which was promptly rained out, which was fine with me and Rachel H. because we figure that the more it rained last night, the less likely it is to rain today.

(I’m actually not sure if the statistics are with me on that one…but I need to believe.) This morning dawned warm and damp, with a few clouds…so we’ll see.

I think that today, the first day of the second half of my life… is likely going to be wonderful.

Wherever you are, remember that today is a lofty and noble thing. It’s World Wide Knit in Public Day, the day we celebrate knitting’s social roots. Get out there and knit something.

(Ps, I finished the scarf but I have to borrow a camera.)

Random Thursday

1. I’m knitting that beaded scarf and I have 10 repeats to go and I’m so glad. It doesn’t matter how beautiful a project is, at some point in it you just think “Oh, come on.” I’m there with this one. Done with it before it’s done with me.

2. Juno arrived here yesterday to celebrate my birthday with me, she’s come for the whole weekend, for the 1000 knitters shoot and for the and I’m pretty glad about that too. We went to knit night last night and she cracked me up by saying that she thinks it’s a real shame that her local knit night is a plane ride away. We ate yam burritos from the Big Fat Burrito, we drank beer on the Lettuce Knit steps. It was totally awesome.

3. I don’t have pictures of either one because my camera is broken. Not a long story, but one in which my stupidity figures largely, so we’re skipping it. It will be fixed/replaced soon, please bear with what will be spotty pictures until then.

4. We go get Franklin from the airport tomorrow, and both Rachel and I are getting nervous about Saturday. We know that there is little we haven’t covered, but we worry anyway. (I am especially worried because all previous attempts to control weather with my mind have failed.) Wish for sun (but not too much) and definitely not rain. Work extra hard on the not rain.

5. If you signed up for a spot on Saturday to have Franklin take your picture, and now you see your real life stretched out before you and you know that you are not going to make it after all…could you please call Lettuce Knit and take your name off the list? There are a limited number of spots and if we know you’re not coming then we can give someone else your spot.

6. If you have been hoping for a spot, you can call Lettuce Knit and see if anyone forked one over. There’s no waiting list, but you can check.

7. I just arranged a cool thing for my brother for his birthday (which was yesterday, but we’re celebrating as a family on the weekend) and I’m really happy about it.

8. I am going on a jag of baby knitting. What’s the best baby sweater you’ve ever seen? Why?

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What I am doing: Writing about knitting this scarf.

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This is still undulating waves, and it is lying on my beautiful blooming chive plants which were smashed absolutely flat by a huge thunderstorm that passed through here last night.

What I wish I was doing: Actually knitting the undulating waves scarf. It has a deadline and it’s fun to knit and although it’s slightly slow going messing with all the beads, I sort of like messing with the beads and anyway, it’s sparkly. I can’t believe what a pain in the arse I will let beads get away with being on account of the sparkliness.

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What I am doing: Writing a blog entry really quickly because there is going to be an invasion. Saturday is my 40th Birthday, and WWKIP day, and the day that Franklin comes to Toronto/ Lettuce Knit for the 1000 knitters shoot. (Read about it here if you’re just finding out.) That means that there was definitely going to be some company. Add to that the fact that tomorrow is my brother Ian’s birthday and Friday is my mother’s 65th birthday, and I can promise you that there is going to be major company. Major company I am related to. This means I totally have to clean up the mess that has accumulated in the house since I was last home for long enough to clean, which was quite some time ago. (Also, I hate it.)

All hope has been lost of approaching real tidiness, and now am I am simply trying to get things done like washing the backyard furniture so we can sit outside, washing linens so beds are clean and fresh, moving kids around to free up beds, sorting stash to come up with door prizes for Saturday, grocery shopping/beer shopping so as to feed and water guests…. all of this before I leave at 4 to head to the Kitchener-Waterloo Knitters Guild to present the results of the adjudicated show. (Who will I see there? All are welcome. Only guild members could enter, but everyone can come to tonight, and it’s actually really interesting to see all of the entries. There are some crazy good knitters at that guild, I tell you that for free.)

What I wish I was doing: Sitting here knitting reflecting on how well planning ahead has paid off for me.

Once Upon a time

(NOTE: added later. Someone lovely pointed out that one of my links was wrong and when I fixed it something big blew up in Movabletype and whammo…all the comments were gone. Sorry about that, if yours is gone, it’s not personal. It consigned a whole lot of them to the MT abyss.)

There was a knitter who lived in Toronto who went far away on an airplane to a magical place called Columbus, Ohio, where there was a gathering of special people called TNNA. The knitter had heard that TNNA was a special thing, but she had only been to TNNA one time before, and it was only for four hours and while the knitter hadn’t really disliked the thing, she hadn’t had time to understand what was going on either.

This time though, this time the knitter was going to the magic forest TNNA for 60 whole hours, which is almost longer than this knitter has spent in one place in months and months. She was very excited about the idea of sleeping in the same bed for a whole three nights in a row. Anything more than that was just going to be gravy. She arrived in the magic land and right away she got to see some of her special friends that live far away in their own kingdoms.

They went to a feasting place with the best BBQ tofu ever, and the knitter looked at her friends over dinner and realized that something special was happening.

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The knitter and her friends (Queen Clara of Knitters Review. and the sorceress Cat Bordhi) were talking about SSKs and no person around was trying to escape their circle of yarn or yawning, or even making jokes about how odd it was that three bright women could care this much about how loops of string looked and behaved. The knitter began to understand the magic of TNNA.

The next morning when the sun dawned over the fortress of light and hope known as the Columbus Convention Centre, the knitter went forth to investigate this place… and this is what she found.

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Many, many powerful people known as “Yarn Retailers”.

Each of these persons holds stockpiles of magic yarn which they exchange to knitters far and wide in incomprehensibly beautiful and mystic places known as “Yarn Shops”. All a knitter must do to procure the magic yarn from these proprietors is give them mere money. TNNA is the place where all of the Retailers can look at all of the magic yarn at one time and decide what sort of enchanted string they would like to have the powerful dispensers of yarn (They have the mysterious name “Exhibitor”) have sent by way of fairy cart pulled by virginal dragons (I think that’s who ships it) to their shops. The knitter was very nervous, and polite and she thinks that the Retailers liked her. (Which is good, as they are the pathway to yarn.)

When the knitter was done talking to those people, she went and sat down in the lobby and had a powerful concoction of a drink that did wonders to calm and restore her. This was called “beer”. While the knitter drank beer, she looked around her at the many other people there, and she began to be impressed. Not just because everyone there had a MacBook Pro (which cannot be coincidence)

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but also because there was no one around the knitter (except maybe the bartender) who did not like yarn. No one who thought knitting was silly. No one who did not know that it is a Billion dollar industry. In fact, and here’s something else that the knitter found delightful, everyone WANTED to hold a sock. Nobody wondered about the sock, nobody wondered why the knitter would ask them to hold a sock.

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She saw Casey and Jess and Mary Heather, who have a mystic company called Ravelry that is so deeply under a spell that even though many, many thousands of people fit in it… no one has ever found where it is. Casey claims that the whole company (even though it has more knitters in it than anywhere else) has been enchanted to miniscule size so that it fits in a “server”. He is indeed powerful and strange.

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Sandi from Knitting Daily held the sock.

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Franklin held the sock

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Cookie held the sock

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Jillian held the sock (Amy was there too, but we see her on Wednesdays at knit nights, so the sock is sort of over her.)

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Norah Gaughan held the sock and the sock just about lost its mind.

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Annie held the sock.

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Drew held the sock

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Anne held the sock

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Janel held the sock (and her new book which is very good…would you like a review?)

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Abby held the sock

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The Knit So Fine ladies held the sock.

More people could have held the sock, but lo the knitter was occupied by her duties and by the very enormous amount of yarn around that distracted and befuddled her. (Seriously, the knitter just about took leave of her senses when she saw the new Louet yarn. The knitter is a yarn person of some immunity. Repeated exposures to yarns of all kinds have left her with the ability to resist it’s magical incantations and auras, but this yarn was devastating. There doesn’t seem to be a link to it online anywhere, thus confirming that it is of dark origins, but it was some mohair/ bamboo/ bison action that was fuzzy and reflective and shadowy and bright and truly a mystic thing. Many knitters stood in it’s thrall. (What the hell was it called?) The TNNA magic went on and on, and the knitter talked to many interesting and powerful yarn people, and she drank more of the magic beer. (Not too much though. It is very important not to be impaired around either knitters with highspeed and cameras, or people who are trying to wholesale mass shipments of yarn. I’m sure you can see the risk of both.)

At TNNA, there is a magic food called Jeni’s ice cream. It is legendary, and most of the attendee’s stalk it at various intervals in their day so that they may imbibe as much of it as possible before returning to their Jeni-less existence. (There are some knitters who have it shipped to them. It does not ship to the land of Canada. I checked.) While the knitter was there, she tried to try all of them but there are limits. She tried (by both purchasing full servings and stealing from others) Salty Caramel, Gravel Road, Belgian Milk Chocolate and one other one. (Nearing an ice cream coma, her memory fails her.) While the knitter was enjoying some sunshine on Saturday afternoon the sorceress Cat Bordhi revealed that in her opinion, the knitter had not yet eaten the best of Jeni’s.

This saddened the knitter deeply, because it was time for her to go to sign some knitting books, and by the time that she was finished, Jeni’s would be closed, never to reopen again. (Ok. It was opening again in the morning, but the knitter was getting on a plane before that and doesn’t it sound better?) She wept bitter tears that she had missed the alchemy and wonder that was “Cherry Lambic” ice cream, and as she cried, the brilliant sorceress cried “weep not my child, I will go into the land of Jeni’s and bring you Cherry Lambic at the end of your signing, but before Jeni’s closes.”

The knitter stopped crying then, not because she knew she would get Jeni’s, but because she was touched that her friend would even try. “You are noble and good” she said to the sorceress, “but all is lost. Although your heart is pure, it is too far from Jeni’s to the Convention Centre, especially now that the earth has turned on it’s axis and it 33 degrees (92F). The Cherry Lambic will melt and be gross before you can come.”

“Trust me” said the sorceress, and off she set.

The knitter went to her booksigning then at Unicorn Books (It’s actually called that. I didn’t just name it that for the story) and she signed books for the retailers for an hour, and at the end of the hour, when it was 4:45 and Jeni’s closed at 5:00, the sorceress appeared. “Behold” she said, and she revealed the bright, beautiful and still totally frozen Cherry Lambic.

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Why was it still frozen? How had the sorceress kept it cool? What spell keeps ice cream cold in Columbus in June? It was a mystic thing. A magical object procured by the sorceress Bordhi through her incredible powers of persuasion. Somehow, someway, The Bordhi had convinced the ice cream shop to give her a piece of DRY ICE.

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(Here The sorceress Bordhi -together with her apprentice Queen Clara of Knitters Review, convince the Unicorn books guy how it’s ok that she has dry ice, and especially how she has it in his booth.)

The knitter (and some other people, including the skeptic above) did then eat the magic Cherry Lambic (which was so totally one of the best things in the entire world and if you are reading this and you are still in Columbus then you should go get it right now) and then the Sorceress Bordhi wrapped up the DRY ICE and gave it to the knitter, and departed for parts unknown. The knitter stared at her bag for a while, remembered what the sorceress had said about disposing of it safely (which was precious little) remembered that she was leaving in the morning and totally wasn’t going to get dry ice past airport security, and hatched a little plan. She went out to dinner with friends, they drank beer together and then on the way home, as they walked through the magical streets of Columbus, they looked for a good spot. They found an empty parking lot, and they got out the dry ice.

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Many other magical items were amassed and put to encircle the thing,

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and then the knitters poured water upon it, and all took pictures while ordinary people stopped and watched, trying to imagine exactly what sort of street art was going on.

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(Some pictures stolen (with thanks) from Mary and Molly Ann at Ariadne) The knitters were honest.

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They did not know what they were creating. They did know, however, that you can only put a piece of dry ice smaller than a golf ball in a toilet, so that idea was shot. When full darkness came, they called the sorceress Bordhi and sang “Smoke on the Knitting” to her, picked up the still-bigger-than-a-golf-ball and returned to the lobby of the hotel, where a bowl was procured, and the magic circle of knitting stuff with dry ice continued.

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Finally, as the last dying wisps of dry ice were fading, Steve, Captain of the good ship WEBS, held it’s last gasps, on account of it was his 40th Birthday, and it just seemed right.

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Then the knitter left the magic land of TNNA and returned home to the place of dirty laundry and a hostile cat… although she does have more yarn now than when she left. Go figure.

I can’t believe what she was wearing

While I would like to make it clear that under absolutely no circumstances would I ever like to repeat the time yesterday in between leaving a train from Kingston at Union Station and arriving at Pearson International for a plane to Columbus, it is rather gratifying to note that I am still capable of the sort of organization and efficiency that it demanded. I left the house with the leftovers of the squeaky cheese in the fridge (good plan or the cat will eat it), got things more or less moved from one suitcase to another, and even remembered to take my spare laptop battery and tossed a half cup of coffee in the planter on the porch, which I’m going to call “watering” since it was the best I had time to do.

True, upon arrival here in Columbus I did note that in my hurry to throw things into a suitcase I had packed some rather odd things, like plenty of clothes, but ones that somehow add up to only two matching outfits… which is somewhat particularly problematic, since I am here for four days, but since I’m not a very snappy dresser anyway, I suppose that I can live with it. I’ve always wanted to be someone who dresses well, like my mum or my sister, who are always wearing something that A) fits, B) does not have a coffee stain down the front of it, and C) is not missing a button, but I think that as long as I keep hating clothes shopping and refusing to do it except under the direst of circumstances, I’m probably going to keep falling behind the pack.

I know I’m not the only one who hates shopping. I hear all the time about people who love it, or people who find great things or people who search until the find something great, but I just don’t have the stamina for it. I get in there and there’s nothing I like, or if I do like it they don’t have it in my size, or if I do like it and it is in my size, it crosses my personal threshold for what I can afford – or think it should cost. I have left behind beautiful clothes that fit me beautifully that I could totally afford because I still thought the price was nothing short of highway robbery, and left in a huff.

Then there’s the anger. I’m not a weird size. Depending on what kind of store I’m in, I somewhere between a size four and a six, although I do have rather large “accessories” in the front. I’m short, true… but not so freakishly short that it should be a barrier to dressing, but somehow it is. Take Gap pants. The average North American woman is 5 foot 4. I’m 5 foot 1 (and a half. I have good posture) that means, to my way of thinking, that if I go into a store and put on their average length pants, they should be too long for me. I can live with that. What I don’t understand is why their “short” length is still a good 5 inches too long. If 5’4″ is average, and I’m 5’1″, then why the hell would the short length still add up to 5’6″? Why we’re at it? What’s up with the monkey arms? Why in the name of everything reasonable are the sleeves on all shirts so bloody long? Or why do they think that if you’re 5’1″ tall, that you must also be unreasonably thin? I’m at a healthy body weight, clothes shouldn’t be judging me like that. Also, my arse is normal. I have been looking at the arses of other women (not in a creepy way) and have determined this. So why doesn’t my arse go into half of the pants in the world? These questions have never been suitably answered for me, probably because I’m asking them of a sales clerk at the Gap who has no idea, no concern and really wishes I would just buy another 3/4 sleeve shirt and another pair of capri’s that I’m gong to wear as full length pants and get out of the store.

All of this is a long way around saying that if you see me this weekend and I’m wearing the same thing twice? Blame the Gap. It was a set up.

There’s no place like home

Although this time, I mean Canada rather than actual home.

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Last night’s gig was the 10th Anniversary of a Chapters store in Kingston, and I had a really wonderful, wonderful time, despite the rather magnificent cold that I’m sure was obvious to everyone. To begin with, I had the enormous pleasure of staying with my friend (who’s really my mums best friend, but all of us are unreasonably attached to her) Yvonne. There is simply no better hostess alive than Yvonne. Period. Her home is a beautiful historic home in Kingston, her dog is the best behaved dog ever to walk four legs, she knew the best tapas place, the bed was cozy, there was (note past tense) Guinness in the fridge…It was an amazing visit, and I’m so delighted that work could intersect with a visit. The bookstore was great. Pam is this Chapters resident knitter – this is Pam,

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and these are her socks (from Socks, Socks, Socks. I asked.)

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and she was on the job, doing her level best to pull it together, and she did very well. See?

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I love these guys. (Hey, Joanne? Canuk in Colorado? See your mum? She’s lovely.)

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There was Molly and Oriol.

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Cheryl and Rory,

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and part of a High School knitting club, Knitters Anonymous, Nicole, Chelsea, Rachel and Charise. (Did I spell that right? I can’t read my own handwriting. Probably the cold.)

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Oh, didn’t want to miss this knitter hanging out on the side so her baby could roam. (He was very well behaved.)

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Turns out that was Robyn and Sean. Remember him?

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(Click here. the crazy thing about doing this job for this long is that I’m starting to see kids grow up.

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This is a wide ranging Montréal group, Morga, Jenna, Angela, Robyn and Amy, and they brought me Montréal bagels (the finest bagels in the world) and squeaky cheese! (I’m totally cheesed up, since I found a bag of squeaky cheese from Joan too. I’m typing this on the train, the wonderful Ontario landscape going by, and I’m drinking Tim’s coffee and munching on a bagel and some squeaky cheese. It’s a good morning, and excellent fortification for what comes next.

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It’s a race. When my train gets in, I have about an hour to make it from Union Station to my house, (two subways and a bus) whip stuff out of my overnight bag and into my suitcase (pre-packed, I’m not a fool) pick up my suitcase, swallow a staggering amount of decongestants so that my cold doesn’t make my head explode on the plane, hit “post” on this entry, and then grab a cab to the airport to leave for TNNA. I don’t even know if it’s possible. I think I’m going to have to warp the time-space continuum to make it happen, and that’s such a pain in the arse. It’s going to be a flat out run in spots. Wish me luck.

If I catch this plane, I’m giving a talk on Friday at lunch (I think that you had to sign up for that) and then a signing at the Unicorn booth at 3:45 on Saturday.

Who else is going?

Quickie

Off to the train in a minute, to go to Kingston (Chapters, 2376 Princess Street, for an event at 6:00, please come if you’re around). I love the train. Adore it. I think it’s the most civilized form of travel around. Even in coach (which is how I am always going) there is space and big windows and you don’t have to make other people get up if you have to go to the loo. (I hate that about airplanes.) It’s very good knitting time too. I’m still deciding what to take with me for this short hop. I’ve got the beaded scarf, the Bleeding Hearts stole/scarf….

The only thing I don’t have is some idiot knitting. It’s the trouble with lace, or at least the lace I’m knitting, is that I need to look at the chart the whole time, thus making it great train knitting, but terrible walking/talking/waiting knitting. You can’t just whip it out of your bag and whip off a few stitches right there. I think I need a sock.

In other news, the Adamas Shawl is finally off the blocking wires. (I use these ones, and love them.) It took forever to dry, since it’s been so rainy and yucky in Toronto since I got back. It’s still crappy out, so the pictures aren’t the best. I’ll take more when I have time and the sun shines. (Also, it is too windy. Lace is too light to be properly posed in the wind.)

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I’m very happy with it, especially the yarn. It’s Knitpicks Shadow Lace yarn in a colour called “campfire” (I think. I don’t see it there though…I wonder if it’s a discontinued colour? If so, there’s a shame.) It took about 1.5 skeins, and the pattern was free, so here we have a $6 shawl. That amuses the cheap knitter within me to no end.

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Gotta leave for the train. See you in Kingston! (Well maybe not you, but a knitter just like you. You know what I mean.)

Done like dinner

Home, home, home. Home for two days until I bolt off Wednesday (June 4th) to Kingston, Ontario (Chapters, 2376 Princess Street, 6:00, big fun) and then off to TNNA, which I’m pretty excited about as well. The house is trashed, I’m super tired, Joe’s leg is still broken (he’s allowed to put some weight on it now, which is a huge help, the next x-ray in next week, then we’ll know how much longer for the cast) every stitch of clothing in the house is dirty and there are no towels… and I just found the scariest thing in the fruit bowl I have ever seen. (I think it used to be a peach. Maybe a mango. The fact that I can’t tell is really messing with me.) Clearly today needs to be spent reclaiming this place, doing laundry, buying groceries and trying to get things back to a place where I can walk out again. (Yes, I know that all that means is that when I come home again I’ll have to do it again. It’s a cycle. They trash it while I’m gone, I come home and clean it up, and then leave so that we can start from the beginning. I think these people must think I find housework fulfilling. No amount of denial seems to shift them.)

That’s what I should spent today doing. Instead, I want to spend at least part of today blocking Adamas, which I finished on the plane on my way to LA. It still looks pretty scruffy here, in it’s pre-blocked state.

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I wanted to block it right away but didn’t have blocking wires or pins. I had a brief plan involving many, many, many, tiny little hotel sewing kits…but the plan would have taken a long time and someone would have noticed I was missing from BEA for sure. Besides managing the duet of sock picture dorkiness from yesterday, there was neat stuff everywhere at BEA. I got advance reading copies of the new Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. (Not sock pictures though. Didn’t see them.) I met Lynn Johnston – who it turns out is a knitter. (Sweaters. That’s her thing.)

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I chilled at the Interweave booth for a while. It’s nice to find a knitting oasis in the middle of something like BEA.

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While I was there I scored blads (“book layout and design”) thingies for both Franklin’s book and Judith’s book. They both look beautiful and I can’t wait to get them. Judith’s comes in November, Franklin’s October. (The blad for Judith’s book has only the first page of the introduction in it. It was so “Judith” that I can’t believe I have to wait to read the rest. Wicked teaser.)

I saw Crazy Aunt Purl.

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She was very funny, but I never did find the “wine booth” she kept talking about.

I found knitters… but I am a terrible person who can’t remember their names even though they were just about the high point of my days there…. Emily? Lynn? Son-of a moth where is that piece of paper?

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On a rather wild impulse I kinneared Marilu Henner. She’s 56 years old and I swear that you could bounce quarters off any part of her. Her stomach is so flat that it makes a pancake look like it has wild topography.

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I had a lovely time with Melissa.

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I even had a couple of moments with Christopher Paolini and his sister (once I convinced the Random House people that I wasn’t actually a crazed stalker and that Chris would really, really want to hold a sock. I admit. The whole sock thing can be hard to get ordinary people down with.)

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Chris reads the blog sometimes for the writer stuff (or so he claims… I suspect that he has knitterly urges that he just hasn’t entirely given over to yet) and his sister (pictured here being shy) is an avid knitter and fibre artist who knows her stuff. They are both just lovely.

Finally (and I know that this is really what you care about) here’s the sum total of the BEA knitting.

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Meagre, I know. This is still The bleeding heart stole turned scarf and my handspun has run right out. I went with A in the end, majority rules, and I’ve feathered it into the handspun so that it isn’t a jarring change.

I think it looks awesome. The green, although very, very close, wasn’t just right, being too blue a shade in real life and the dark pink….truthfully, I couldn’t get the image of the whore’s panties out of my mind. Too much contrast for me, and more importantly, for the intended recipient. I’d love to spend another few hours working on it, but for now I’ve got to go. I’ve got a shawl in the sink.

My work here is done

(Well, my work here is done except for a signing at 9:30) I know that by posting these two pictures as pinnacle moments in my BEA trip this year I am forever marking myself as a dork of epic, epic proportions, but I don’t care. (Frankly, I figure I was pretty far gone anyway, so what the hell.)

I give you Leonard Nimoy with my sock,

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and William Shatner with my sock,

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ON THE SAME DAY.

Seriously. I couldn’t get close enough to Leonard Nimoy, other than that sock picture, but I did get right up to William Shatner and got his book signed. I did ask him to actually hold the sock, but his handlers were moving the line at a pace that can only be described as warp speed, and when I said “will you hold my sock?” he said “I can’t hold a thought” and I said “no, no, it’s a sock, will you hold a sock” and he glanced at a handler, and they looked me up and down and said “No”, and moved me off. I stuck out the sock and took that picture anyway, and he looked at me all surprised (I suppose it was a little odd) and said “Thank you.”

I left.

It was good for me anyway.

Dudes. Classic double threat.