Oh, What a Night!

To quote my friend Theresa, "Yesterday will go down in history as the Best Harlot Day to Not Actually Include the Harlot."

The anticipation and excitement was palpable all day. We met wonderful, talented knitters. Everyone was happy and knitting their little hearts out despite the fact that the weather was terrible and that the lights were out on Cicero.

We heard from Jayme that the Harlot was going to be late at which no one blinked an eye. The Grand Ballroom opened right on time; the room looked great and all were glad to wait. The Hilton bar was pretty busy with happy knitters and then...

At around 7:00, my cell phone rang and on the other end was a very upset Jayme who said that Stephanie was stuck in Toronto and wouldn't make it.

I walked back into the room and made the announcement that Stephanie would not be coming. I'm telling you that KNITTERS ROCK! There wasn't an angry face in the crowd. Everyone was immediately relieved that Stephanie was stuck at home and not in some distant airport. The news that there would be a Harlot Redo brought cheers and claps.

But, that's not the end of the story! Drinks were brought in, chairs were moved into circles and the group knit on. Undeterred by weather and disappointment, the Knitters knit on.

As many of you know, my sisters, Deb and Kay were here for the event. Deb went home yesterday morning to Western Massachusetts, home of the fabulous WEBS and the host of Sunday's Harlot event. Deb went and saw the Harlot! Traveled to Chicago to watch her sister host the Harlot only to go home and actually sees her! What a hoot. Life is full of wonderful surprises, isn't it?

For some wonderful pictures of the day, click here and here. If I do say so myself, Miss Cory did look marvelous, didn't she? I just wish she wasn't such a shrinking violet. You wouldn't believe the coaxing it took to get her up on the stage at the Hilton. Poor, poor shy thing. NOT!

As soon as I have more information on the Harlot's visit, I'll let everyone know. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your kind words to Cory and I; for being gracious, lovely people that handle disappointment with aplomb and joviality; and, for making the whole day the best party I've ever attended. The only things that really, really hurt were my brand new, very cool shoes.

Robbers and Raccoons Beware!

The Prince is a vigilant man.

In my house, security is paramount. The Prince is deeply concerned about security breaches and sleeps with one eye open. Nothing gets more tsks or raised eyebrows than a potential security breach. He has a bad, bad habit of regularly waking me up for which I constantly scold him, but when there's the threat of a security breach, all bets are off.

At 4:39 this morning, there was such a security breach. I awoke from a very sound sleep to the Prince sprinting out of the bed, cursing. Our bed is in front of a window, but rather than look out this window from his side of the bed, he ran around to my side, kneeled over me with his knee in my face to look out the window.

"What are you doing?"

"Didn't you feel that? There's a raccoon on the ledge outside the window, probably eating bugs out of the gutter and if I don't get him down, he's going to break the gutters. He's shaking the whole room!"

"Please get out of my face."

He ran to another window, opened it and started screaming, "Hey, get off of there!"

Then he ran downstairs and out the front door to look at the ledge and scare off the offending raccoon.

When he came back to bed, he said, "Didn't you hear it? Didn't you feel it? That raccoon shook the damn room!"

I got up and shook the bedside lamp which was most certainly the noise I heard.

"That's it," he exclaimed, "That's the noise! It must have been an earthquake; hurry, turn on the news."

Sure enough, it was indeed an earthquake. "See, I was right," he said, "See! It was an earthquake."

The TV station was taking calls and one man reported that initially he thought there were aliens landing on his roof.

"Ha ha ha, an alien, it was an earthquake, dummy."
"You thought it was a raccoon, dear."
"I was right, it was an earthquake. This better not show up on the blog. For the record, I thought it was an earthquake."
"Your secret's safe with me."

In knitting news; and there's always knitting news, the UPS guy brought in a hand truck full of boxes yesterday.

One was gigantic and he said, "This one is 69 pounds, it can't be yarn!"

"On the contrary my friend, it is yarn."
"Where are you going to put it all?"
"That, I'm afraid, is Miss Cory's problem."
(The earth shook a little yesterday too and it was Cory groaning from blocks away.)
"Sounds like you have a problem too!"
(Oh, you have no idea.)

Oh, the beautiful yarns I got! You've got to come in and see. One yarn we've all been waiting for came in - Noro Sock yarn!

Here are class pictures of our brioche tams. Pretty spectacular, aren't they? There were some tense moments, but everyone conquered brioche and most of the class finished their magnificent tams.

Here's Kristen's:


Here's Tracy's:



And here's mine:



And Miss Eileen finished her Nantucket! HOORAY!



And last, but not least, here's our latest Great American Aran Afghan Square. Eleven down, nine to go!

"Drizzle, Drazzle, Druzzle, Drome:

time for zis one to come home!"

I hope I'm not the only one who remembers Tooter Turtle's plea to Mr. Wizard. It is indeed "time for zis one to come home." It's been a long time, but I'm going home for the weekend to see my family! Home, if you didn't know is Wilbraham, Massachussetts. Wilbraham is the home of Friendly Ice Cream and is a suburb of Springfield which is the birthplace of basketball, the Indian motorcycle, Dr. Seuss, the Duryea automobile, the first National Armory, Smith and Wesson and Granville Brothers airplanes. Quite a legacy isn't it?

As always, Cory will be in charge while I'm gone. She's having Open Knitting on Saturday, April 6 from 4:00 p.m. to whenever and she's opening the Shop on Sunday at noon. Stop by and say hey to her and have her show you all of the new Spring yarn! (I just got a big box from Tahki/Stacy Charles this morning.) Make sure she doesn't get too cozy; I'll be back on Tuesday.

Here's the progress on my two latest:



You haven't seen this one before. It's the VIP Cardigan by Charlotte Morris from the Best of Interweave. I've been coveting it for a long time and have just enough Debbie Bliss Cathay to make it. The yarn was supposed to be the intarsia Flourish by Kim Hargreaves, but when I pulled it out the other day to do a row of intarsia, I changed my mind. Given that there was just enough yarn, it seemed to be destiny.

This one is the Medallion sweater from the Spring Vogue I showed you a few weeks ago using Cascade Pima Tencel.



I'm working on both at the same time so I don't really consider them two projects I've started without finishing anything else. It's only one project I've started without finishing something else. My conscience feels better this way and yes, I really do know it's just a silly trick.

See you when I get back.