G. Knerd

I can’t remember when the first time I went to Third Place Books to see the Yarn Harlot when she came to Seattle was, but I’ve gone for every single book tour since.  The first time I’d just started reading her blog, and for some reason in my head I pictured her as a tall woman with a high soprano voice.  I was expecting to have fun at the book reading, but really I was going to get a book signed, because really, when you can get a book signed why wouldn’t you go for that?

In reality, the Yarn Harlot was not tall and sported an amazingly rich and lovely alto voice.  She was also so hilariously funny that I nearly fell out of my seat laughing, and I was simply charmed when I finally got to meet her in the signing portion of the evening.  I walked out that evening with stars in my eyes and haven’t missed a Yarn Harlot book signing in Seattle since.

That night, I also made it my mission to get myself onto the Yarn Harlot’s blog.  I figured if I could do that I would really be a knitter.  (Yes, this is after I started seriously knitting at twelve years old.  I might have a bit of hero worship going on.  This is one of the reasons why I consciously don’t follow celebrity gossip – I would take it way too seriously if I ever started.)

It took a few iterations.  I tried bringing baked goods, but they weren’t very special.  I was somewhat hampered by the lack of free time and lack of advance planning that always cripples me for important events like this.

In 2007, I thought I had it made.  I’d picked out a couple balls of a lovely mottled blue sock yarn made in Italy, and presented them to her as if she were my queen (because she really is knitting royalty).

There’s no yarn in that picture because she snatched it out of my hands and secreted it away before the shutter snapped.  I think that means she liked it.  I also got a nice picture with Stephanie, but…

…I made one fatal error.  I brought with me my friend Jimmy, who was currently working on his second knitting project – a fair isle scarf for the binary code for a computer virus.

It was really no contest which of us would be mentioned in her blog post for that visit to Seattle.

The next visit, I brought an in-progress wedding ring shawl which frankly looked like a gooey pile of yarn while it was being worked on.  Stephanie was still vocally appreciative, and mentioned that when I finished I should let her know so she could feature it on her blog.

I, of course, completely forgot to do so when I finished the shawl, but hearing about her latest book tour jiggled the memory in my head and I managed to get it together enough to bring not only the usual baked good (this time peanut butter cookies baked around a peanut butter cup center) but the shawl as well.

And this time, I am in fact on the Yarn Harlot’s blog!  Scroll down past all the other knitters and babies, and find the picture of two girls holding up a shawl that is way to0 big to be useful for anything, and that’s me on the left!  With my massive shawl that still somehow manages to pass through a (large) wedding ring!

I must be a knitter now, I’ve been mentioned by the Yarn Harlot.  I can cross that one off my bucket list.

For those of you who don’t speak Danish/Norwegian, “Mormor” directly translates to “mother’s mother”, but is more likely translated to “Grandma”.  Since my Mormor lives in Denmark, and we already called my dad’s mom “Grandma”, it made sense not to translate that and stick with “Mormor” for her.

Plus, it was really fun to confuse the kids at school with a word they didn’t know.

Being the wonderful Mormor that she is, every year she sends me a package of presents, often containing a hand-knit item.  This year, the hand knit item looked like this:

Which seemed pretty innocuous, until I read the tag…

For those of you who might have trouble reading it, the tag says: “Dishcloths.  Please say thanks to Kat – she bought the yarn I just knit it.  Mormor” (Kat is my stepmom, and a lovely lady in her own right.)

As much as I adore Kat (and need to get her a nickname for the blog, because she’s sure to show up here again…), I just can’t fathom the humility it would take to claim that I didn’t need to be thanked for knitting something, that the person who bought the yarn deserved thanks more than me.  Maybe if I was knitting with yarn spun from actual princess hair and did something ridiculously simple, but even then…I’d deserve some credit, right?

Of course, the dishcloths themselves are lovely as well, and I’m torn by the idea of using them – I know that they’re intended to wash up messes, but the idea of purposefully getting these hand-knit beauties dirty?

Sacrilege, I tell you.  Simply sacrilege.