Yup. She came to Eau Claire, Wisconsin Sunday and I was there with my pals.
Clockwise from light blue sweatshirt: Nancy, who inspired me to try socks; Colleen, a library pal whom I introduced to STR; Mary, another librarian knitter; Matthew, my 17-year-old son, whom I coerced bribed convinced to drive us so I could knit during the 2-hour drive; and moi. You can't tell it from this angle but I was wearing my Dulaan shirt. We are snacking up at the Acoustic Cafe, which is across the street from Yellow Dog Knitting, sponsor of the event. The cafe was full of knitters. I doubt it has ever been that busy on a random Sunday afternoon, but it was certainly hopping about 4 pm Sunday.
Many other bloggers have talked about La Harlot, so I won't repeat what you've read elsewhere. I'll tell you what no one else has mentioned.
1. La Harlot has a low voice. She's just a little bit of a thing, but she has a vibrant contralto voice that she uses to good advantage. It may have been just because it was the end of a week of constant talking and she was a bit hoarse (gee, Kath, d'ya think that might have been it?), but it surprised me.
2. La Harlot has an obvious attraction to children. This little one
ran up onto the stage as she was photographing my side of the audience. She instantly held out her ball of sock yarn: “Here, do you want to hold my yarn? You can help me while I take a picture.” [Child accepts yarn, giggling.] “Are you a boy or a girl?” Child: “I'm a baby!” [Much laughter from audience.]
3. La Harlot specifies that people with babies and small children get to be at the head of the book-signing line. Right there, she guaranteed herself a special place in heaven in my book.
4. She's really good at picking up on the things that strike her as funny (no surprise there) and making everyone else see the humor. She did this repeatedly during the book signing – everyone was laughing and having such a good time because of her. I have a specific story about this, but she may tell it in her blog, so I'll wait.
The way I convinced #2 son to drive us was with the promise that he could go shopping while we went to the talk and book signing. I raised two boys and no girls, but this one is satisfying any daughter-wanting feelings I might have with his artistic flair/shopping/stylin' ways. As we were driving to pick up my pals, he gloated, “Seven malls in 15 days – woot, woot!”
He showed up back at the yarn shop just as I got to the head of the line, so I introduced him to La Harlot, and she shook his hand. He's heard enough about her from me that (he confided later) as he reached out to shake, he thought, “I get to touch HER!” He may be a muggle, but he knows a VIP when he meets her.
The knitters got to the venue in plenty of time to get good seats. During the wait until the magic moment of 6 pm, this happened:
All in all, it was a very special day.
