O Canada!

Today was about as good as a knitting day could get. Knitting group in the morning, when I got home I watched the segment of Minnesota Showcase from this morning with guest the Yarn Harlot. Lots of close-ups of the Harlot knitting her traveling sock. In the afternoon TiVo recorded Cookie A on Knitty Gritty, and the final knitting goodness: The Yarn Harlot live in St. Paul, courtesy of The Yarnery in the evening.

Six of us drove to Eau Claire in September in my Eau de Dog minivan, but this! This was fabulous. Only twenty minutes from my house. Could the day get any better?

Yes. First, the Yarnery gave everyone a canvas tote bag. Nice and roomy, perfect for carrying around, say an Aran sweater knit in one piece. I found a seat, fairly close to the front and pulled out said Aran sweater. I exchanged pleasantries with the women on either side of me, and then shortly before door prizes were flung across the auditorium to various deserving knitters, someone came up behind the women to my right and flashed a skein of Fleece Artist yarn.

"Where did you get that?" I demanded. "I've been looking everywhere for Fleece Artist!" She pointed to the front of the room, where I had been aware a certain amount of commerce was taking place, but I somehow thought they were selling only the Harlot's latest book, which Amazon delivered to my doorstep two days before, so I hadn't bothered to go up and look. "Up there? They're selling Fleece Artist up THERE? " My heart soared, then sank. "Do you think there's any left?" They assured me that they had seen Yarnery women unpacking boxes and boxes...

I threw my Aran sweater to the floor and bolted over my seat to the front of the room and scored these two beauties, modeled here atop the tote bag.


A few minutes later we were instructed to pull out from our tote bags the lyrics to
Canada's national anthem. After first hearing the song in French (sung beautifully, I might add), a room full of knitters stood up as the Harlot peeked around the curtain and we all sang it together, in English.

Check it out