A Link Party

Never give a party if you will be the most interesting person there.
-Mickey Friedman

My weekend plan:

• Final edits to a paper headed to the publication committee Thursday
• A draft of a second paper

My weekend reality:

• Check out the progress on Rogue. Last time you saw her, ages and ages ago, there were sleeves and a little of the body. Now we're cruising along on the hood:
• A phenomenally good time with the knitting and blogging folk. I'll try to recreate my party in links:

I caught up with the Yarn Harlot book tour in Grafton on Friday and discovered that standing room only has an advantage - you can mix and mingle with more people. It was like a (very crowded) cocktail party.

Kristen, the eponymous Med Student Who Knits, and I had big plans to meet up earlier and talk med students who knit talk, but the biggest plans are no match for Boston-area traffic accidents. Thus I discovered a new axiom: The good friends are the kind who, if they're going to leave you waiting, make sure it's a yarn shop.

I knew that SilverArrowKnits was going to be there, and for show-and-tell she brought not only her Christmas stocking in progress, but also her friend E, who casually waits in line knitting a shawl from Fiddlesticks Knitting. Fiddlesticks! In line! I knew I'd see Monica again, but her spin-dye-knit Knitting Olympics scarf was a great surprise - the softness is hard to portray through the monitor. Met a (blogless) high school student who managed to study physics from a textbook while standing up - impressive feats of endurance and balance. While waiting I met Elizabeth and a whole bunch of other fantastic knitters in line.

After the craziness, Laurie helped Kristen and I find each other between the piles of yarn, and all was good.* Not only because Kristen gave me gifts (me! gifts! yarn!) . . .

(Online, since we met online, and Trekking XXL for my x-country trip,
and one of Oprah's favorite moon pies from Maine)

. . . but also because she invited me along to dinner with the crew (including Stephanie herself) and introduced me to a whole bunch of people. People like Claudia (yes, THAT Claudia) (who gave me zipper advice), Sandy (who made me laugh), Morici (who gave me directions. that worked.), and plenty of other people whose names I can't remember. Oh, and I also met Kate. Go over to her blog and convince her that there's no better time to start Am Kamin. Seriously.

It was good times all around. Especially when Stephanie complimented my rose trellis stole. All of you who admired it are in great company.

*So, as these things go, Kristen and I met in person for the first time at a Yarn Harlot book signing last spring, and she introduced me to Laurie then. We started talking about what kind of medicine I was going into, and I said something like, "Anything but anesthesia. I hate anesthesia." Not quite, but probably pretty close. Turns out, she is Etherknitter. An anesthesiologist. Of course. . . . and of course she remembers. But she still speaks to me, so that's good.