The Harlot Has Landed

And much harlotry ensued.

These are some knitty friends of mine waiting for Stephanie's grand entrance.
Don't they look excited? Have you ever seen a more animated crowd?

The book signing took place at the library, and you may have noticed that they appear to be sitting in among the stacks. They are. The muggles at the library, as we might expect them to be, were honestly surprised by the tenacity and volume of "the knitters". They should have asked us. We knew. The rows were five seats wide. How many five-seat-rows will it take to host a Yarn Harlot book signing? The library staff didn't know either.

Here we see Timothy, the token male member of the St. Louis Knitting Guild, introducing Stephanie:


And here is the Harlot herself, holding up a sock in order to appropriately blog us. I was also holding up a sock in order to appropriately blog her. Much blogging ocurred. The lady sitting next to me (in a chair next to the table I was sitting on) took a picture of me, but said she didn't have a blog. Why take pictures if you don't have a blog? I can't imagine.



The talk was fantastic. I have known of Stephanie P-McP since she posted her essays on the Knitlist. I have read nearly all of her blog posts, and I have read all three books at least once. I've already heard 95% of her stories, but they were so much more hilarious in person. She was an excellent public speaker. She didn't say "arse" once, however, she did say "eh" once and we all laughed.

After the speaking part was over we were dismissed in an orderly, row-by-row fashion, (I think the library lady thought she might get trampled by hoards of people carrying pointy sticks, adding insult to injury) and at 9:00 I found myself standing in front of Stephanie while she wrote as fast as she could. I showed her my Olympic Knitting hat. She correctly identified my sweater as a Butterfly. I gave her my blog "business" card, which I had made for Stitches Midwest last year, and handed out a grand total of One. (It seemed like a good idea at the time.) (Hi Chris!) She let me hold her sock and took a picture of me with it. She did not look up and say "Hello Beth! How are you?" I did not remember to take a picture of her. I did not, when given the opportunity, take note of the yarn nor craftsmanship in the sock in progress. My brain had left the premises. It was everything I had dreamed it would be.

Afterwards, I stopped at Cold Stone Creamery for some ice cream. It was wonderful, my experience marred only by the fact that 22 teenagers also wanted ice cream at the exact time I did, and the large man in front of me didn't want me to see my ice cream being mixed. Normally, I wouldn't care, but it was my first time and I wanted to see what the big deal was.

I have also discovered this week one of my favorite features of my new car. The cup holders have these rubber linings that are removable. This would be practical from a cleaning standpoint, in the event of a spill, if they didn't both have holes in the bottom. Anyway, when they are removed, a larger hole is left, and the driver-side hole is the right size for some Cold Stone Creamery or a container of cherry sorbet mix from class. Both containers fit nearly perfectly, and I was able to drive without worrying about them falling over and marring my perfectly spotless new car. Brilliant!