Yarn Harlot Rocks BookPeople!

There is so much to say about Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s wonderful reading the other night at BookPeople. Stephanie—aka the Yarn Harlot—showed up to a beyond-packed house on the second floor. I’m guessing there were around 200 rabid fans there-- yes, most of them knitting-- and, during my informal roll call (I had the great honor of doing the introduction), I am happy (but not at all to surprised) to report that there were folks representing from HCW, The Knitting Nest, Bluebonnet Yarn Shoppe, and Gauge.

I missed the pre-reading reception because during that time, in the hour before the reading, I was at home bidding farewell to my eldest dog, Satch, who was put down after being in much pain for a long time. I’m not just randomly mentioning this loss, I’m mentioning because it actually figured in for me at the reading.

First of all, right before the dog departed, I was working on a sock to calm myself. In the process, though I’ve made a million socks, I screwed up. But I was too upset to figure out how. Then it dawned on me that Deb, who taught me how to make socks, would be at the reading. And so I made a plan to bring my screwed up sock—I had planned to bring socks anyway since the Yarn Harlot is the sock queen—and get help.

Matter o’ fact, Deb is the first person I ran into as I raced up to the third floor of BookPeople to meet Stephanie before introducing her. Deb, who knew about my sad day, gave me a huge hug. I started blubbering about sock mistake, and she just put out her hand, said, “Give me your knitting bag,” and I did, and a little later, voila, she handed me back the sock, unraveled down to the spot I’d made my gaff, and ready to go. How does she DO that so easily?



Meanwhile, Stephanie gave a reading that was so smart and so funny that I laughed and I laughed and I thought and I thought and what I thought was not, I am so sad, but Wow, that is so interesting. I don’t know about you, but I say that if someone can make you laugh and think an hour after your beloved old dog has headed off for the doghouse on the other side, that is one hell of a reading.

Besides sharing hilarious observations about what non-knitters assume (and often blurt out) about knitters, Stephanie also told us about a very cool study. If I try to repeat what she said here, it’ll turn into a bad game of Whisper Down the Lane, but the short version of how my ears heard it was that if you do something repetitive while processing trauma, you are going to have a much better shot at handling that trauma in an analytical way so that you don’t go on berserk-o sensory overload. Aha! I thought. That explains while I wanted to knit when I was waiting for the vet to arrive.

If you were there, I don’t need to try to explain any better. If you were not, I am really sorry you missed it but I do hope you’ll stop by HCW and pick up one (or lots) of Stephanie’s books. I’m pretty sure BookPeople got totally cleaned out of their supply the night of the reading.