Yarn Harlot Visits New York!

I had the delightful, extraordinary experience of sitting in a full lecture hall at FIT in NYC on Thursday evening the 22nd, with 750 people, all knitting at once, laughing and hooting while listening to Stephanie Pearl Mc Phee ( aka Yarn Harlot)http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/expound on the pleasures of knitting and the problems of communicating with the "muggles" who still believe that knitting isn't cool, and that there couldn't possibly be so many knitters who: like sock yarn enough to join a sock yarn of the month club, use computers, go to knitting conferences andretreats, read books about knitting or write "real" books about knitting...It was a fun, amazing event! They had red bags at each chair with a set of size 8 needles and some Patons SWS yarn, and instructions to make a block to donate to afghans...everyone knit furiously on socks. blocks, sweaters, etc.I didn't see anyone I recognized, but enjoyed sitting with generous strangers, one of whom was wearing a Frost Flowers and Leaves shawl in delicious jaggerspun Claret Zephyr, and another person who knits HarryPotter-themed hats. I saw many Clapotis, one Knit Around Sweater, tons of socks...on the way there, I stopped in at Habu textiles and School Products, which had tons of hand dyed cashmere, yak, camel, silk tape, etc.There are 17 yarn stores in NYC alone! Here is a link to a fantastic interactive map of them : Check out this http://www.batchgeocode.com/map/?i=f5f723954d28fe6cc0d5d1c49bb09eb2 . Stephanie asked us each to think of our own stash, then look around us and imagine all the stashes of all the knitters in the room--what an experience! I also got her new book, laughed some more on the train home reading it. The knitting world is different from quilters; more broad spectrum, more isolated I think, although with the rise of blogs and Internet sites knitters are beginning to connect more. It seems more shop-based rather than guild-based, but it is another (mostly female) force to recon with...fascinating to be in both worlds. Similar issues preoccupy both groups, but there is a lot of crossover. Sometime I'll have to write more about this, but I need more research. LOL... ...