Is there anything I can say about this woman that hasn’t already been said? Probably not.

Funny. Profound. Rock Star. Love her.

Listening to her speak, in a room full of knitters who are all knitting and laughing and nodding…there is something about that evening that makes you feel that all is right with the world.

Shout out to blogless Laurel, who met us there and blogger Jen, who went with me! And to Angela, who I was delighted to see! Happy birthday, Miss Angela, I hope it’s a great one!!!

We arrived at 6:30 and the room was already crowded. After greetings all around and I looked into my knitting bag, I realized with horror that the 2 skeins of sock yarn I had brought to work on were missing! (Not missing as in gone forever…. I was pretty sure they must have dropped out in the car when I was rummaging for the map.) But still—here I was at the biggest knitting event of the season, and I was missing my yarn. Do I go out to the car? At this point, we were seriously penned into our seats. Those seats were squished together closer than people in the pews on Easter Sunday and there weren’t really any aisles. I looked at Laurel and asked—should I climb over all these people to go out to the car or should I wind up my emergency skein? Yes my friends, I had brought an emergency skein. You know, just in case I knit 2 whole pairs of socks during the evening and ran out of knitting. You never can be too careful.

Laurel voted for using the emergency skein and I trusted her judgment. The only problem was: it wasn’t wound. Fortunately, there was a handy dandy chair back a mere 1.5 inches in front of me, and the person occupying that chair didn’t mind. She was, of course, a knitter.

It took me the entire hour of waiting for Harlot to wind the ball, but I cast on the sock as she started to speak, turned the heel as we were waiting in line for the signing, and was zipping down the gusset as we got up to her table. Zipping might be an exaggeration; we were in line, snaking around the aisles of Borders for 1 hour and 45 minutes! But we were knitting! And talking to other knitters!

Moral of the story people, and I don’t have to tell you this: always bring your emergency knitting. You just can’t have too much back-up.
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Thank you for your words of support yesterday! Here's a little update on the CLTV visit:

I hung 2 big quilts in my living room on stands.

I hung smaller quilts and recent drawings on my design wall.

And I had a small quilt top basted and ready to be quilted so they could film me at the machine, working.

I had yarn bins filled with undyed yarn and dyed yarn so they could see the "before and after".

And I scattered more yarn around the studio for "atmosphere".

You may remember that part of my panic in having 2.5 days to pull this together when I only had a few skeins left in the shop. Well, thank you to my friends Carla, Jodee, and Lisa, who came to my aid with their respective stashes of Sophie's Toes to fill my bin and make it look good. Thank you ladies! As to why this yarn wasn't wound and on the needles yet, well, no questions asked. There might be a skein or two in there that I have saved for myself. For quality control purposes, I assure you (hi honey!)

Ok, last up: what did I wear? Don't laugh, but this was for me, a huge issue. I spent some serious time on the phone consulting my sister, who came through with great advice! Thanks sis!

She advised me that for this show I needed to look "cool" and "hip" and that it was also important for me to wear something I had knitted, preferably out of my own yarn. I settled on a black tee shirt and my purple corduroy jacket. But I didn't have a little scarf or shawl to match. I'm knitting a Chevron scarf to go with the jacket, but it's not done. And then, about an hour before they were going to arrive, I noticed Carla's Chevron scarf that she had donated to the cause as a sample of my yarn. I called her to get the ok to wear it and she said "of course!"

She made a shorter version and used 1/2 a skein of Sophie's Toes color Magical, and 1 skein of Claudia's Handpaint.

I loved wearing it and am totally motivated to get mine done.