Guess Who my Sock got to Meet Last Night!

Yep, you've got it...Stephanie's sock!  What a fun night that girl puts on, I tell you.  Not only can she write stuff that makes coffee come out of my nose, but she can do stand-up too.  If you get the chance to hear the Yarn Harlot speak in person, go.  Very, very funny. 

Dear Daughter and I got to our local library about 45 minutes early (we really don't have a yarn shop big enough to hold a gathering for this "rock star" of knitting).  In fact, we got seats in one of the last rows set up at that time.  What the folks at the library didn't know was that by the time Stephanie started to speak they'd need a lot more chairs...

They had set up perhaps 50 chairs and easily that many women sat in the nearby stacks, on the floor, along the windows...one of us asked the Librarian in charge of selling books (which were gone 35 minutes before the Harlot arrived) if they were surprised at the attendance and she turned, deer in headlights, and said quietly, "Not in my wildest dreams."  We knitters are certainly an intimidating bunch and the non-knitting staff ('muggles' Stephanie calls them, tee hee hee) made more than a few jokes about being in a room with so many "pointy sticks". 

All the rumbling stopped of course when the Harlot took the podium.  She waited patiently during her introduction, fingers flying over the sock -- she probably really is shy; it seemed to calm her.  She got up and said, "You know what I've got to do, right?"  We nodded and twittered as she got out her camera, the muggles stepped back.

If you are going to get to see her, there are spoilers here, .... if not...She talked first about how 'not cool' she is.  How she's married to a music producer who is the epitome of cool and hangs with cool folks and how when she goes to parties with him and all the tall, thin groupies and cool but dumb music people, she feels like a dork.  How she hoped writing books would elevate her coolness, but that the cache goes out the window when she has to tell them what the books are about -- very funny riff on that topic. 

Her delivery is deadpan, she has a surprisingly deep voice for such a petite person.  That delivery is half the fun.  Now I can read her stuff with that voice in my head -- kind of like Jim Dale and the Harry Potter books.  There is a slight Canadian lilt, dear Daughter caught it and wondered where she was from (I obviously hadn't prepared her well enough for this evening). 

She also talked about the Olympics.  About how surprised she was at how that little gem took off.  She is genuinely mystified at its organic nature, at how it just grew out of all proportion to it's beginning.  One funny statistic is that there were nearly 5000 registered knitathletes, more than twice as many participants as the real Olympics.  We laughed heartily at that image.

Folks drove from all over Missouri and Illinois to this little gathering.  If you have to chance to see Stephanie speak, you should certainly go. 

Are you wondering why I'm blogging at 5:00 a.m.?  I awoke at 4:15 this morning to hear loud pops and rumbles.  I walked all over the house to find what was making all that noise.  I thought perhaps some yahoo was driving past the house with only rims, no tires, then I got to the front of the house.  It was as if the sun had risen.  Bright orange light lit the front of the house.  Across the lawn and just up the block, a three-story construction project that took up an entire city block was on fire.  The flames were 4 stories tall, the noise deafening.  Ash and embers fell on all the historic houses across the street.  Fire trucks and ambulances started to arrive -- they couldn't get even close to the fire.  Man.  Very, very scary.  We all stood outside and watched our roofs, making sure the shower of sparks didn't ignite the pollen and debris in our gutters.  It's under control now, but whooo.  Smelly and a total loss.  The street light globes across the 5 lane street melted in the heat.  The trees in my neighbor's front yard are wilted -- we worried they'd catch fire.  Now that the sun is up, we can see the film of ash and chunks of charcoal littering the street and sidewalks.  The windows on the front of the house are dusted with ash.  The dog is totally freaked out.   We're fine though. 

Sisterhood of the Traveling Stash

Don't forget to consider joining.  Read yesterday's post for more on that.  Still working on a button...

Gotta go make more coffee.  It's going to be a long day.

Comments

[Carole]

I'm so glad you got to meet and enjoy Stephanie. Spending time with her always makes my stomach hurt from laughing so hard!

[trek]

Wow - there was an fire in our old garden apartment complex when we were first married. Everyone came out to watch the firemen. It was strangely riveting.

[Jennifer]

How fun seeing THE yarn harlot! I bet she was a riot.

BTW, I've thought about the sisterhood of the traveling stash and I'm in. Let me know what you need from me.

[Laura]

Oh Ann I'm dying of envy here. I bought her books on Amazon since I couldn't go.

And the fire. wow. just wow. what a horrifying experience. I hope noone was hurt (you said ambulances which I would assume is standard issue during a fire of any sort).

I thought about the Traveling Stash and decided no. I sure would love to but I'd probably feel pressure to go out and buy some yarn cause I DON'T HAVE NO STASH! lol

[Lucia]

We had a similar experience with a fire, only it was our neighbor's house two doors down. Luckily they weren't home, but they lost a cat and two hamsters, and they had to raze and rebuild.

The Harlot is amazing, isn't she? And she never seems to burn out. She remarked when I saw her this last time around that it was weird to be stalked by a whole lot of really nice people.

[margene]

The fire sounds scary and fascinating! I love all my stash too much to give it away;-)

[Kate Lathrop]

What fun!!!! And your sock looks lovely next to Stephanie. We hope to get her out in Phoenix this summer - can't wait!!

And I fell in love with your sock and promptly bought the Watermelon for myself from Dani's site. I need 1.more hours in the day and 2.more sets of hands to knit my socks!

See you soon! Kate

[Maureen]

I had the good fortune of seeing Stephanie when she came to North Van last summer. She is indeed a funny one. I just hope she gets back out this way again. Canadian accent....I hadn't noticed. But then being one myself, I guess I wouldn't ;)

I was so excited when I saw your post of yesterday that I was ready to fire off a ME TOO. Then I took a second (slower) read through and realized, alas no north of the border. Have fun with it!

[Bridgett]

Jeez, that fire was terrifying, and I drove past at 9 in the morning! The TV trucks were still all there, and it looked like a bomb had fallen on that project. My mom's friend is the salesperson there; she said she wasn't even going to call her for a few days. Such a loss. I'm hoping it wasn't arson, but flames at 4 in the morning? I just worry about what's going on. There was an attempted arson on Connecticut a few weeks back...The TGE neighborhood meeting is tonight. I bet it brings out the worryworts from all over.

In happier news, Sophia has been wearing her pinky socks I made! She loves them! I am encouraged to make more! Danger!

[Julie]

Thanks for the description of the evening w/The Yarn Harlot. I wish I'd been able to make that 150 mi. drive yesterday, but I just couldn't talk myself into it.
Now, in reference to your previous post, are you telling me there's a yarn store in St. Louis that sells STR? Which one? (Not that I've managed to get to any of them -- I just haven't had a compelling reason until now.)

[Jenn]

Ann, I wish I'd known you would be there. I would have saved you a seat up front. Kari had told me that you were knitting a lot, but I didn't know you had a blog! In fact, I didn't know this was yours until I was reading the part about the fire, which got me to wondering, and then the picture of the blue pots clinched it. Hi!

[Rachel]

Yipes! What a scary thing to wake up to. Your pictures are great. I held my camera all through the line and at the table and completely forgot to take the picture. D'oh!

[Cindy]

Hi there. You must live close to my brother & SIL's former house, as that fire was a few blocks from it.

I went to see the Yarn Harlot at the recommendation of one of my friends. I'd never even picked up any of her books before, so I'll ALWAYS have her voice in my head when I read them. (Glad to know I'm not the only one who has that "voices in the head" thing going on...)

[Diane]

I've been watching the Harlot's schedule closely to see if/when she's coming to So. Cal. Sounds like a not-to-be-missed experience.

As for fires, coming up on 3 years ago, we had BAD wildfires here. Many, many homes (and a goodly portion of my backyard) burned. My husband and I didn't sleep for over 24 hours because we were so afraid of the wind-driven embers, so I know exactly how you feel. At the time, we were without electricity or phone service so I didn't even have the Web to keep me company. (Course I didn't have a blog then either.) we were washing ashes and soot from stuff for months.

[Carol]

If I'm not too late, I'd like to join the Sisterhood!