So last night I made it to see the Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. I got my ticket for this event about a month ago – ticket #9 in case you were wondering. Seating was to begin at 6:30, and I got there at 6pm so I could get a coffee and maybe wander around the bookstore since I never get to. Yikes! There was already a line to be seated so I joined it and knit while I waited. My sockapalooza socks which a number of people asked me about, and I directed them to Knitting Daily for the pattern.
The crowd was pretty decent in size – I am guessing right around 150 people (the photo down below does not have the standing room only people – they hadn’t been released yet.) Lots of faces I recognized, but I am not part of the real active knitting community so I didn’t know too many people. I sat next to a very nice woman named Flo, who handles all the charity work for the guild. I swapped stories, patterns, and techniques with the knitters around me. It was a nice wait. There was one woman working on a gansey in the row behind me – I kept turning around and staring at her trying to make eye contact with her. I wanted to look at that sweater since I am burning to knit a traditional gansey. Man, it was gorgeous.
Anyway, Stephanie was as funny as I expected. She told a hysterical story about biscuits in Tennessee that had me rolling. Mostly, her talk was about how we need to have more respect as knitters because we are a force to be reckoned with. The thing I liked the best about her is she seemed genuine. It has to be hard to give the same talk over and over to knitters across the two countries. At one point, she offered a woman who was coughing terribly one of the waters the bookstore provided and asked us not to clap when we started to because “she was just changing the cat’s litter box 4 days ago.”
I waited in line about a hour to have my book signed behind the rudest woman on the face of the planet – she snapped at the gal who was helping with the book signing because she gave her incorrect directions to the books for purchase and now she had to wait in this very long line. I seriously wanted to say something right back at her because the bookstore gal certainly couldn’t, but my anger kept me from coming up with something clever and passive aggressive to say. Anyway, by the time I got to Stephanie to have my book signed I was feeling really bad for her. She seemed tired – very tired. And who wouldn’t be? She was kind to everyone and smiled, but I just wanted to get my picture taken, have my book signed, so she could get out of there to have some pizza and beer at Moose’s Tooth. In the process, I, of course, managed to be a dork. Look I have it in pictures – let’s take a run down shall we?
Stephanie: “Wait a second, why am I holding the sock? YOU are supposed to be holding the sock!”
Stephanie: “It’s like she comes all this way and she doesn’t even read the blog.”Me: *desperately scrambling to say something funny* “Well, the line was long, I am hungry and nervous.” *obviously failing miserably at the humor*
There we go – how the photo should have been from the beginning. Except, dammit, I forgot to have her hold MY sock. I seriously should not be let out in public after 8pm. Kudos to the nice woman behind me for capturing this embarrassing moment. 
