THE. YARN. HARLOT. (so fantastic)

a huge thanks to Yellow Dog Knitting in Eau Claire. they hosted a fantastic event with the very loopy, but very charming Yarn Harlot last night.


here she is ... taking the obligatory sock & crowd photo

(oh, by the way, welcome to my very first blog entry. i've had this thing for several months, but never used it. i'm sick of the blogging capability of my myspace and truthfully, almost none of my knitter people use it. so any talk of knitting there is wasted. except for the Knitta Krew!)

now, back to the Harlot. the day i read on Stephanie's calendar that she would be within driving distance of me, i knew i had to go. i immediately emailed my knitters and said, "sign up now, let's carpool" or perhaps something more like "OH MY GAWD YOU GUYS, THE YARN HARLOT IS COMING, LET'S GO!!!!!"

finally the day arrived, and after Shawn ran his very first organized 5K (congrats again, honey) in the rain, and of course after lunch, we headed out. we easily found the shop and Lisa and Janine were alread there - knee deep in yarn, of course. i immediately started fondling yummy new yarns i hadn't seen before (like that great noro braided stuff i can't recall the name of). i made my way over to the sock yarn, where Lisa was trying to help Shawn find yarn for Sock Wars, when lo and behold, the magic of yarn overtook me - i found Schaeffer Anne in my exact Bette Davis color for my hoodie:

(insert great photo here when i get one)

i immediately put the thing around my neck to claim it as my own. it felt good to have yarn around my neck again, as i haven't worked at the cafe in a month. (i start back tonight, but that's another story)

so now i'll have the perfect socks to go with my awesome Bette hoodie. maybe i'll try jaywalkers? i don't know yet.

anyway, i bought a book and the new vogue knitting and knit.1 and got a present from YDK. a cool bag. we made our way over to the masonic lodge to meet the Harlot. i have to admit i was completely geeking out. i wanted to get right up front. 3rd row would have to suffice and we pulled out our knitting, i showed off my Anne again, helped the woman behind me with a half-dropped stitch and thought the impromptu sock circle photo session was great. then the magical moment came! Stephanie came out and took our pictures with the sock (and help from a little knitter)


she asked, "are you a boy or girl?" and the child said "i'm a baby!"

she is even funnier in person than her books - although now i'll be able to read in her voice, complete with the proper amount of "aboot". i love the idea of the knitter's handshake (feeling the shoulder of the garment a stranger's wearing while saying "this is wonderful, what yarn did you use?") and the idea that you can't frog a husband. it wasn't until near the end of her talk that someone asked about her sock, that she held up the sock and i realized she'd been knitting on the sock the entire time. this completely blew me away. i now have a new aspiration in knitting. not only to not have to look at your knitting, but to give a talk to 100 + people, complete with notes, and knit a sock on DPNs. amazing.

we made our way back to the shop for the book signing and while we were waiting in line outside, two younger males walked by and asked what we were doing, and the entire bit of Stephanie's talk about the "uncoolness" of knitting came back. so we all kind of looked at each other and giggled a little and said "book signing", and giggled harder when one said "Oh, what author?"

in line we met a woman who teaches drop-spindle at YDK (Jennie) and Shawn and I both decided we'd go back for the class. i saw a gorgeous sweater i am adding to my to-do list, Rogue. now that i look at the site, i had seen the sweater before, but not in person, and not in such lovely colors. this woman had just finished it that morning out of cascade 220 quattro, it was gorgeous!!

we slowly made our way up to the front and there she was. now i was really geeking out. i was happy to see that she'd been introduced to my favorite beer, Leinenkugel's Honey Weiss.



i got my book signed and gave her my gift. wine called "The Harlot". i was deemed sockworthy (and stash-weasel worthy!) and she took my picture!!


i'm sockworthy! i'm sockworthy!

then she agreed to pose with me while Shawn took our picture.


there must be something about Stephanie and blurry photos... oh well!

she asked me if i was a blogger, and i said this would be my first blog entry. (how am i doing, Stephanie?)

i bought a "Knitters without Borders" pin and went into the main part of the shop to high-5 Shawn for being sockworthy. YES!

we waited for Lisa and Janine to make their way through, while i also resisted buying anything else. Shawn bought Latvian Dreams, and the author was there and graciously signed it for him (she was just so adorable!). the 4 of us agreed to meet in Menominee for Green Mill and off we went. lucky us, andrew was indeed working, so we got the added bonus of seeing him.

all in all, a trip which i initially figured would take about 6 hours, lasted 10 1/2. i got home at 12:30 this morning. lucky me, i don't have to work today. and lucky you, i have time to type this up right away. Stephanie promised she wouldn't link to me till i was ready, and now i'll be ready.