I met the Yarn Harlot!

I got to the book store four. Hours. Early. (I vastly underestimated my shopping time. However, I was not the first one there - there were six or so women knitting in the Borders Cafe. We all exchanged pleasantries, and I got to working on my sock. After about an hour, I noticed people were starting to hover around the front door, so I knew people were lining up to get tickets for the book signing, so I skedaddled over there. I ended up being 10th in line. We all sat down in line (hoping no one needed any science fiction books) and knitted.



My friend Jamie, who lives in Md. but teaches in D.C., showed up after work! Girl drove through D.C. at rush hour to get there. What a champ. We got decent seats, about six rows back on an aisle. She went to Safeway to get sandwiches for dinner, I kept knitting and looking around in awe at all of the beautiful knitwear - and in amazement at the sight of 100+ knitters knitting at once.



Stephanie came out at 7:30 and spoke for at least an hour - it was probably more like 90 minutes. But first, she had to fix the mic stand.



She was so, so great. Her speech was hilarious - she talked about CHOKE - Cultural Humiliation of Knitters Everywhere (I believe that was the acronym), it's a scourge to knitters everywhere. God forbid you knit and are single - there is clearly no hope for you, your fate is sealed. That sort of thing.



At the end of the Q&A, I thought it was really great that she did "preboarding" (her words) for people with small children, or people who just had a really long trip ahead of them, no questions asked. I was No. 10 for the signing so I hustled upstairs quickly.

I was so nervous ... I really wanted to say at the minimum, your sock recipe was so great! It totally worked for me. Or, hey, I love "Knitting Rules" and I swear it opens itself to Page 136 all the time (because I'd hunch over it when trying to figure out the gusset).

Jamie was a peach and took lots of pictures:



The picture she took of me ended up on her blog - and I am tickled. I am also identified as Laverne, which I think is even more awesome.

This is my favorite picture of the evening. I got to hold the traveling sock! And the sock for my mom is now imbued with some Harlot knitting mojo.



I spent the day after the signing bopping around D.C. looking at the World War II Memorial and knitting on the National Mall. I also spent a few more hours in a Borders, knitting, because I clearly didn't do it enough the previous day.

I got all the way to the gusset by my trip's end:



Now I'm off on another adventure, to Charleston. Maybe I'll finish the sock by the end of the trip!