Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. ~ The Dalai Lama

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Work be damned!!!

Ok so realizing that work has been the all consuming force in my life, I have been very sorely neglecting my blogging and knitting duties. However, I will try to make up for my neglect a little with this super post.

All day Thursday and Friday I spent all of my time getting caught up in the Yarn Harlot's book release in Toronto.(You have to admit that sounds super exciting!!!!)

I had originally started typing this entry some time Friday morning, only to have to quash that idea to you know...finish work. - ARG!!!

The rest of my day flew by and I left work at 3:30 to go to Thornhill, retreive my son, get hime home and meetup with Janet and Shelley by 5pm at Yonge & Eglinton. I arrived at Y & E around 5:05 and we hurried ourselves down to the subway to get to the Manulife Centre & Indigo's encase there was a massive line up. Of course I left the fully charged digital camera at home and so after much procrastinating I finally went and purchased a disposable camera - so I apologise in advance for the graininess of the pictures.

As it turns out there were a few knitters all ready there like Erin from the Naked Sheep,


and Tanya and her sister in law (sorry I don't remember your name) from Ottawa.


For those of you who know me, it could be said that I have a gregarious personality or that I am a little tenacious...so when we arrived and no line up was started we asked the manager on duty to start it then because we wanted to be first in line and to be able to get a seat.

It should be said that as expected the mugglish staff really didn't anticipate the amount of knitters that would come to support one of their own and only planned to have a small seated area for 80 people. We kept telling them as the line grew that they really should have planned for a larger space...but as all of us have come to understand - they just don't realize what a large community of us there are.

Janet, Shelley and I were incredibly fortunate (and dare I say happy) as we were able to go in and get first pick of the seats...choosing to be right in front of where Stephanie would be speaking on the left hand side of the chaired section front and centre.


As you can see, I am rather excited about this fact and really the energy in the room made for great build up. (Not that I need much)









As you can see the crowd kept growing and growing and growing until every nook and cranny, every stair and available space around where the Yarn Harlot would be appearing was flled with excited knitters, busy working on some fabulous knitty project.

I found the group very warm, very friendly and a lot of fun - there was a great deal of catching up between old friends, the joy of meeeting/making new friends and a lot of laughter. I tried to capture some pics of familliar faces...

Carol...


(left to right) Nadia, Susan and Peggy...


And new friend...Joey from Ohio.


I also met Swatchy and Noricum although I didn't capture them in picture form. What a treat - thanks for the postcard Noricum!

Right before Stephanie arrived...


The time really flew by one everyone was seated and then Stephanie appeared. It was amazing to hear the crown swell up and cheer. I am not sure if that frightened Stephanie more, but after her introduction, she finally got to the stage.

Stehanie being introduced...


After saying hi nervously, Stephanie did her formal group shots....

I thought it was cool to capture her taking our group shot as I took hers...and yes I know very nerdy.

Then Stephanie launched into what was a very humour packed 30-40 minute speech which had her petting her pet kitty/wool...

...and more or less keeping the group in stiches, really bringing to life the Yarn Harlot as we all know(kinda) and love her.

Once the speech was over, then the autograph session began. I really liked that Stephanie gave first priority to mom's with babies on the outside or the inside. To me that was very thoughtful....and I had the warm-fuzzies.

This darling little one held the sock and let Stephanie capture a few really cute shots of her...I'm sure to appear on her blog some day soon.

Finally it was my turn...

I think I mumbled a bunch of stuff...but can't really remember...besides asking her which beer she would like waiting for her at the Dick.

After some small amount of coaxing Carol, Shelley and Janet we made our way to the Spotted Dick, where a rather large group of Drunken Knitters had all ready arrived and were awaiting the hoards of other knitters. In the picture above with Janet and I, you can see that I have started a project as I had only cast on the first row. This was me starting the back side of the Blue Skies Alpacas "Ribbon Shell" that I have been working on somewhat slowly.


After finishing the front,

I realized I had made a fatal error, not knitting the front high enough to fit my chest...and rather than frog it back to fix it, I decided I would start the back and then once that was finished go back and fix the front.

I am really enjoying knitting with the baby alpacas/silk mix and think I am leaning towards becoming a yarn snob, as it feels like butter in my hands. I can't wait to finish the shell and get the ribbon through it... :)

Also got to see beautiful and blooming Jen from My Sensitive Girl hole. Congratulations again - you are looking fabulous....too bad we didn't get to chat.

So, I left the Dick and got home around 11:30 thankful that David (my partner) had graciously watched the whole caboodle of kids and that I had the opportunity to socialize with such a wonderful and warm group of people. I was a little sad not to be going on the yarn crawl yesterday, but that's life. I had a hectic work week and also took Thursday evening to catch up with dear friend Teresa, eating yummy italian food and seeing her fab not-so-newsish house...so taking Friday evening out too mean that the rest of weekend needed to be family time.

The good news is that Yarnaholic's Anonymous is meeting tomorrow night and I am looking forward to my knitty time again.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a wonderful post! This is the first I've read whuch talks about Friday evening - needless to say I was anxious to find out everyone else's thoughts! I'm really looking forward to knitting tomorrow - for some reason it seems like forever since we met, even though it's been a regular period of time. It may be the stressful day I've had...

Shelley.

Jen said...

hey dollface - this is a great post. I'm really sorry we didn't get to chat either - by the time everyone was getting their game on I was ready for bed. My manboy and I were leaving for Ottawa early on Sat so I knew I had to get a good night's sleep.

We'll get some quality chat on soon.

rams said...

Is it only me, then? Not a single picture shows up here...

--rams

Tania Little said...

Sorry about that Rams - reloaded all of the pics tonight - the joys of technology. ;)

Anonymous said...

Cool! Thanks for providing some in-person for those of us from afar!

Anonymous said...

Tanya and I enjoyed meeting you too. It was a fun night. Great writeup of the event.

Yvonne (aka sister-in-law from Ottawa)

Anonymous said...

Hi Tania,

It was great to meet you on Friday night. Your energy level is fabulous! I like your writeup of the book launch, and the photos.

Thanks again for starting the lineup so we could get front row seats. Hope to see you again soon.

Yvonne's sis-in-law, Tanya :)

Anonymous said...

Great pictures, I love when people put up a lots of pictures of events like this! Looks like so much fun!

Ann-Marie MacKay said...

look at how cute you are!!
(not little girl cute, but cute and fun and knitterly)
great post.
i got to meet the harlot when she spoke in kingston.