Cynthia writes:

Along with writing an entertaining blog and knitting amazing garments, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee produces her knitting books with breathtaking speed. Every time a new one comes out, she does a book tour. I kept missing the opportunity. Finally last weekend I decided it was time to go.

From State College it's an easy drive to Pittsburgh, where I got to see her at Joseph Beth bookstore. Kevin went with me and also enjoyed her talk. Even though we got there early, he stood in the balcony so that he would not be taking up a closer seat that a knitter might want. (That is why I love Kevin so much.) You can see him in Stephanie’s balcony photo. Go ahead and look at him in her photo, top of the page. I'll wait. He is the small blue speck standing just to the left of the big blue post. Find him?

And here is his vantage point:

I'm there too! I am the person dressed in black on the lower-right corner of the photo, immediately next to that display of books. See me?

Stephanie calls herself the “Yarn Harlot” because, she says, she will knit with any yarn--but I have to say that I did notice the word “merino” coming up a lot. I appreciated that.

When she finished, I lined up for the book signing. Here, I had an ulterior motive: To get a signed book for Kirsten, who works in our store on Saturdays and saves our lives over and over again.

So I stood in line. A long line. When it was my turn, we had an awkward conversation about hamsters--the kind of conversation that you might have when you are one of a hundred people in a line--and then Kevin took our picture. I am smiling in the photo because I am relieved to be moving away from that awkward hamster conversation and holding onto some hand-dyed sock yarn:

If you ever get a chance to see Stephanie talk, please go. She is even more inspirational in real life than she is on the blog, and it's a lot of fun!