The Woman, The Legend, The Yarn Harlot

Poking around online a few weeks ago I saw that Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, aka "The Yarn Harlot," was coming for a lecture series in Massachusetts!  And I was pretty excited, I've read most of her books and followed her blog for years.  She is a professional knitter, teacher and writer.  And to knit and yarn enthusiasts, somewhat of a rockstar!  She had come out to Webs last year but the tickets were ridiculously expensive.  (though I admit it I was still tempted!)  Plus the weekend that she was coming to Boston was already chock-full of activity:  my husband's birthday, a 5K that he was running, my nephew's first birthday....etc etc.  Sigh.....next time I guess.

Then I got a text from my friend Jenny, asking if I wanted to go with her.  Wheels started turning in my head....and then she told me the tickets were $20 apiece.  Yeah, I was sold!  We signed up for the Sunday morning lecture at 9am in Dorchester.  I was "gonna make it work."

Sunday morning I head into the city, and discovered one of the nicest yarn stores I had ever been to!  The Stitch House in Dorchester is decent sized, has wonderfully helpful staff and a great selection of yarn.  And more importantly....they hosted the Yarn Harlot.

Let me tell you, Stephanie is every bit helpful, gracious and funny that I had thought, and more!  She talked for three hours (while we all knitted, of course) about the importance of blocking, how to pick out yarn for sweaters instead of just the "OOOOHHHHHH SO SOFT" that many of us use.  (Guilty.)  Not only that, she named names when she was talking about yarn that's bad for sweaters, and she went over all of her tools in her knitting toolbag.  Needless to say, I've got a Christmas and birthday list going.  And the first item on it is a Wanda.  

This woman makes me feel like knitting anything is possible.  I left ready to take on charts and to buy enough yarn to start a really good sweater.  (I'm on sweater hiatus though, at least for myself.  I'm still working on losing more weight and there's no way I want to put all that time into a sweater that will be too big)

Afterwards she was signing books and I was thrilled that I remembered to bring my copy of "Knitting Rules!"  She was also kind to let Jenny take my picture with her, and here it is!