Books and the Women who Wrote Them- and me

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had some fun and met some crafty authors/rockstars- and I’m just now getting around to telling you about it.

On Tuesday, March 4th, I met up with some of my local Tula QAL peeps for happy hour, followed by a book signing with Rachel May, author of the new book, Quilting with a Modern Slant. Rachel was lovely, and so friendly, and we might have monopolized too much of her time… She was so sweet, she even blogged about us, with a photo (!), and told people about my skull quilt. Her book is also wonderful, and you should check it out if you get a chance.

Then on Monday of this week, the one and only Yarn Harlot, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, was at a local bookstore. Once, 7 years ago, I went to see her read. It was quite a night out– I even ended up on the local news. I guess they felt it was newsworthy that people knit? Anyway! 7 years ago, I was too scared to knit a sock. They scared the bejeezus out of me- the teeny needles and making a heel and oh, no. I confessed that to the Harlot, and she seemed unimpressed.

Shortly thereafter, I took a class, and made my first socks.

Fast forward nearly 7 years. The Yarn Harlot is back in town. Now, not only can I knit socks*, I can knit complicated socks. I can even kitchener a toe while in a crowded room, listening to a famous knitter regale the crowd! So, when it was my turn in the signing line, I told her how I used to be scared of socks, but now am a sockstar. And she examined my sock and pronounced it good.

She even showed off my latest finish for a photo.

The other highlight of the night? I wore my newly completed Color Craving shawl, and got loads of great reactions from other knitters. Someone took my photo in it, and at least 3 different folks approached me to talk about it. It made me feel super special- and happy that I pushed through a project I didn’t love working on to get to the fabulous end result.

The only downside? When the Harlot took her trademark photo of the crowd with the sock, my friend and I were sitting too far to the left to be in the photo. If you look at the first photo in the post, and look at the right hand corner, you can just make out the grey and pink of my Color Craving at the very edge… Ah, well. I know we were there.

*I went back and counted, thank you Ravelry, and I have knit 60 complete pairs of socks in under 7 years. My mind is kind of blown by that.