Harlot Hangover

I've got a Yarn Harlot Hangover.  It was awesome.  I'm so glad Angela went with me, because it made the trip so much more fun.  Also, the GPS decided that it had gotten us to the yarn store and that was all the navigating it felt like doing for now, thankyouverymuch, so it just decided not to acquire any satellites when it was time to head home.  Angela helped me get back to the highway ("Look, there's that Moe's we passed!  Turn left!") and agreed with me that the one exit we tried was entirely too scary looking for fast food at 10 p.m. and there must be something less dangerous a few miles down the road.

We started the afternoon at Knitch, the yarn store.  Lots of yarn, pretty colors, total visual overload.  I bought the Barbara Walker Mosaic Knitting book and a "I Knit with the Yarn Harlot" t-shirt.  We had a snack at a place right next to the theater and finished up just in time to get a good place in line, with only about 20 people in front of us. KnitterBoy, TurtleGirl, and Fairie Knits were there and I got to wish KnitterBoy a Happy Birthday.  My Monkey Bag was fabulous!  I clipped it on my belt and knit the ribbing of the Cut & Paste socks.  I need another one.  Here's the line behind us after only a few minutes.  Holly, from our knitting group, has more photos including one of all of us at Knitch.  You can see me wearing the bag on my hip. 

I have no idea how long the line got, but I was loving the looks on the faces of people driving by.  "What are all these people doing lined up?  And most of them seem to be....knitting?"  We waited outside for about 45 minutes, but it was such a nice evening and there were lots of knitters to chat with and hand knits to admire. 

We made it into the theater and pretty much had our choice of seating.  We grabbed seats in the the 8th row of the floor section and had a fabulous view.  Within 3 minutes, we felt trapped and claustrophobic and maybe squashed.  I'm glad so many people were able to attend, but these chairs were packed in there!  We made the quick decision to move back several rows to seats that were at the front of an aisle.  We were still side-to-side squashed, but at least we had 6 feet of room in front of us.

During the hour and a half of so of theater waiting, I finished the Cut & Paste socks.

I'm so happy with them.  They feel delicious and I'm proud of my first sock design.  I'll take better photos of them later.  (Check out the lovely shawl on that lady in front of me.  The guy with her was wearing an amazing colorwork vest.)  There's a ton of yarn leftover from this Dream in Color Smooshy.  I might be able to get some footies for Grace out of it.  I also won one of the raffle prizes, a beautiful set of knitting bamboo needles topped with pretty flowers.  Not real flowers, but I don't know what they are made of.  Something hard, but not glass or ceramic.  I'll get back to you on that.  (Wait, look here - Flower Beadles.)

Then, then Yarn Harlot, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, arrived.

Terrible photo.  I knew that she would be funny and give a great talk, but I didn't expect that I would want to be her best friend.  I'm trying to convince DH we should move to Toronto.  Her voice was low and kind of gravelly (too much traveling, probably, poor lady) and she had this adorable chuckle that was almost dorky, but not quite.  I worked on the toe of a new sock as she talked.  At one point, when I counted my stitches I had 33 on one needle and 38 on the other.  I was laughing too much to care.

Then another 45 minutes or so of standing and waiting for the book signing.  My blogworld friend Tammy, who lives in California, was disappointed last week when she didn't get to attend the Harlot's appearance in LA.  She asked me to tell the Harlot that Tammy says hello.  Tammy,

Stephanie says hi back to you.

Stephanie likes to take photos of knitters with their first socks.  I told her that the Cut & Paste socks weren't my first socks, but they were the first socks I'd made up all by myself.  She liked them and told me I should sell the pattern on my blog.  Well, maybe someday, but this first pattern will definitely be a freebie.  Here she is with my socks and her traveling sock:

A huge thank you goes out to my extraordinary DH who kept our 2 kids and 2 of Angela's kids so we could go party with the Harlot.  There was pizza, and a trip to Kmart, and after dark AirSoft gun battles and who knows what all.  And he made everyone breakfast this morning.  You're the best, babe!

Comments

[Carly]

I'm SOOO Jealous! But where's the obligatory picture with the Harlot? Or was one pic for Tammy and one pic with the socks enough? :)

[tiennie]

How fun! What a great sport the YH is! Can't wait for that pattern -it's so pretty!

[Tammy]

Oh Becca - You are soooooo awesome! Thank you! You made my day! I'm glad you had such a good time!

[Carolyn in MN]

Can I say 'hi' to Tammy too? Hi, Tammy!

The socks are lovely. The socks holding The Sock was inspired. I'm glad you had a great trip!

[Julie]

Thanks for sharing the Harlot love with those of us back in Los Angeles.

[joyce]

i enjoyed meeting you in line and seeing the socks in person!

[Elizabeth]

Hey I enjoyed meeting you in line and ogling the gorgeous green socks!
I have a very nice pic of you and the sock btw and will send it along asap

[Kristen M.]

Hi there. I popped over from Tammy's blog. But, when I got here...I realized that I'd started reading your blog here and there about 2 weeks ago. You're on the unsocialized ring. I'm so glad you enjoyed The Harlot. I missed her in LA too. How could they think that 750 seets were enough for the knitters of southern CA.

[J.P.]

That was such a fun night! Having you come up and wish me a happy birthday was so cool!

It was so great to meet you!