Saturday, April 22, 2006

As Promised

Hello, my friends...as I promised yesterday, I am back to impart to you (and just write down before it's lost forever in ma brain) my personal recollections of the Grafton, MA stop on the Yarn Harlot's 2006 Spring Yarn Crawl...er, book tour. Same diff, when it's knitting, eh? Go 'head, disagree with me.

Thought not. ;-)


I'll start at the beginning by saying that when I realized WEBS might not work out (thank you all for your helpful suggestions, btw!!) for Saturday, I had to be creative. I checked the tour schedule, Google Maps, and then with my friend Priss-Cilla, in that order. Said, "Listen, I know I said we'd go to Northhampton on Saturday and be silly about yarn - but how 'bout we try doing it Friday night in Grafton instead?" Luckily, Priscilla has known me long enough to run with it, and run we did. We both ditched our kids with the respective male half of the parenting equations, and hit the road.

I have to pause here and say that Priscilla is a heckuva date, and I mean that in the nicest possible way! She knew my schedule Friday was beyond hectic, and that I probably wouldn't have gotten to eat by the time I got to her house. Turned out, she had dinner waiting for me, and I ate the tastiest Vegetarian Egg Fu Yung in the car on our trip - and here I thought I'd be knitting a sock in the car on the way up~! Her idea was much tastier, to be sure. :-)

Right, sorry, I was talking about knitting and The Yarn Harlot a ways back, wasn't I? Sorry, back to business.

A zip up the Mass Pike and a few muttered, "I don't see any street signs..." later, I pointed out Classic Yarns of Grafton on the left, and we veered - sorry, politely signaled and drove into the parking lot. It was just 6pm and turns out, we were right on time. The place was PACKED already, SRO, and it wasn't that big of a place to begin with. A truly nice Yarn store, to be sure, and one I'd enjoy spending time in when I could actually move around in it, but it was such fun to stand arm to arm with other ladies (and two gents), talk and knit together. Priscilla was amazed! She'd never read Stephanie's blog, y'see, and had only heard of her about two weeks ago when I suggested this crazy idea. :-) That's me, the Enabler - nice ta meetcha.



So, we're inside, and Stephanie appears on a stool (THANK YOU!!) so that we could ALL see her; as I mentioned it was mostly Standing Room Only, tho some in the front could & did sit on the floor. The obligatory Sock was produced, and photos were taken:


We all giggled and took pictures back (no kidding, lol), with the resulting flashes prompting Stephanie to comment that if she didn't know better, she'd think she was having a stroke - I felt guilty as I snapped my pics, but obviously, not guilty enough. ;-) Hey, I like taking pics, and I tried to be very considerate!

Then, the talk started - and while Stephanie gave us the option of just asking questions OR hearing her give her prepared talk, we ALL overwhelmingly chose the talk. Thank Goodness, because it was HYSTERICAL. I kid you not! I was wiping tears from my eyes I was laughing so hard, and I was tickled pink that I could hear Priscilla behind me laughing long and loud, too. YAY, my friend is having a great time!! YAAY!

The stories were fantastic, the descriptions spot-on; even the stuff I had read bits about in her blog were brought to life by Stephanie's voice and expressions plus hand gestures. Her face is Amazing! No, really - we all know that Stephanie is not just another pretty face, but she has a face that can convey SO MUCH without saying so much as a word. I loved it, and could watch her talk all night - I was so caught up, it was truly wonderful. :-) Here are a few shots I got when I wasn't giggling like a loon, or crying either:


And of Course, on the Heels of the "Martha-Freaking-Stewart" episode of The Yarn Harlot, we have this sign right there in the shop:

Last but by NO MEANS least, we have The Sweater. Yes, THAT Sweater - Stephanie's Olympic Hardangervidda sweater, and it's even more amazing in person:


The talk and the questions ended, and then we were allowed at the Wine & snackage (okay, it was only then that I SAW them.), and we got in line for to have our books signed. I had Boo's socks with me, the finished one and the unfinished one, and I actually TURNED THE HEEL and picked up stitches for one gusset while standing in line - YAAY, I can really DO this stuff! :-) Here's where we come to the Mutual Sock Blogging portion of our journey, where Boo's sock got to meet Stephanie, and I got to meet Stephanie's sock:
Truly, the next day when I told Boo about it, she just wasn't impressed - but I hope she will be someday. ;-)

The end of our marvelous evening was Priscilla giving in to Fate and buying two of TYH's books, tho not the newer one, go figure. ;-) My dear friend & I had SUCH a blast, and I want to thank the Wonderful ladies at Classic Yarns of North Grafton, MA, and especially Stephanie Pearl-McPhee for a sparkling, Highly Entertaning evening!!

More to come tonite, but for now...


Priscilla and I got to go and hear The Harlot last night, in Grafton, MA - it was HYSTERICAL, and we both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves...we were laughing so hard, we were wiping tears off our cheeks throughout. A Wonderful night that included some Co-Blogging, so I have to post the pics and recap later on, when my wee monster isn't begging for attention.

A funny; Stephanie held my 4th sock (Boo's 2nd sock), and I held her sock for the Reciprocal Blog Photo, and when I tried to explain the significance to Boo this morning, her face got stormy.

"Don't let ANYONE hold my SOCK!" says she. ;-)

She'll understand when she's older.

No, really, she WILL - she IS my daughter, after all.

Oh, and I donated to TSF, and got the nifty button for my vest as well as my blog! I promise, MUCH more later. Toodles!

Friday, April 21, 2006

Little Bit More Monster

Who can resist more pics of
The Homespun Monster??

Thursday, April 20, 2006

YAY, I'm going to see Ms. Pearl-McPhee!!

YAHOOO! I decided, "Dammit, I'm GOING to see this woman speak, one way or t'other!" . So I looked at the tour schedule...and called my friend Priss-cilla. ;-) She's a knitter, but not a blogger...yet. YET! We had planned for Saturday, but that won't work at this point - and now, we're doing Friday night in Grafton, MA. WOOHOO!! It'll be tight, as I can't leave here before 4pm...and we need to be an hour & a half away by 6pm, driving THROUGH dinner-hour traffic. But - BUT - we're gonna do it!

Of course, it WOULD be nice to have $$ to spend on yarn, or say, Stephanie's BOOK, but hey...just being able to attend with my knitting and my friend will be a blast. :-)

Thanks to all the cool bloggers who commisserated, and gave me ideas - I still may use some of 'em! ;-)

Oh, by the way - over the winter, I made the "Happy Hat" that I found online...but somehow, it came out HUUUGE...so my daughter appropriated it. Then, she wrapped herself in her blanket, and put the hat on...and became "The (Lion Brand) Homespun Monster":

Hats, We got Hats!

This past winter (and for my Knitting Olympics project) I made hats. Part of the reason was that I like hats. No, really, my friends all call me the Hat Lady...as do their kids. :) The other reason was to teach myself DPN's before I took my Sock Class. Here's some of the hats - I LOVE the H2O pattern from ChicKnits, and then I just used a few free patterns off the 'net.


I ended up making 3 H2O hats rather than the two I had planned, because one came as a commission from a lady who was going to use it as a Chemo Cap!

Now for the Chemo Caps:

My Second Ever pair of Socks!....Well, my third ever SOCK. ;-)

Okay, so this is my third SOCK, which is the START of my 2nd ever PAIR of sockS. ;-)


Working on them now, for my daughter....finished up a few of the Curley Purley Easter eggs, but no pics of THOSE yet. I DO have a pick of the first Boo sock, tho!

I'm working on it's mate, and should have it done for this weekend. I had HOPED to see The Harlot at WEBS, but I don't think that's gonna happen. Turns out I didn't read the part on the website where it said I needed to REGISTER, and now they're BOOKED SOLID.

Damn.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

It has been brought to my attention...



...that folks haven't seen BOTH my socks at once. Together. :-)

I DO have two of 'em, and HERE they are!
See?? TWO socks. Two. 1, 2. There's the 2nd sock on it's own as well, so you can see the difference.

D'you believe me Now?! ;-)

Monday, April 03, 2006

Happy April!






I've been learning to knit Socks this month. Not an excuse for not blogging, but a real reason - Truly! It's taken ALL my concentration, but I now have TWO SOCKS that I MADE all by MYself. YAAAAY!!! I only hope these pictures show UP!